Anne Arundel County police said they have not seen incidents of vandals chemically burning white supremacist slogans in residents? lawns like those that hit Howard County last week.
“I haven?t heard of anything like that happening here,” said Lt. David Waltemeyer, Anne Arundel County police spokesman.
But Anne Arundel has tracked some of the higher numbers of hate bias incidents, which county police call RRE ? race, religion and ethnicity
? in the state, and last month an effigy of a black man with a noose around his neck was hanged from the South River Bridge in Edgewater. For example, in 2004, Anne Arundel?s 65 hate bias incidents were the third highest
in the state behind Prince George?s 70 and Baltimore County?s 111.
The recent Howard incidents ? eight cases of white supremacist slogans and symbols burned into Ellicott City lawns ? mark a new type of crime, which observers say first occurred in the county two years ago.
In 2004, in Ellicott City, the symbol of a cross was chemically burned into the lawn of the Howard County School System?s then-second-highest-ranking official, Chief Academic Officer Kimberly Statham, who is black. Howard County police never caught those responsible for the incident.
“The Kim Statham incident was the first one I?ve heard of,” said Rufus Clanzy, administrator of the Howard
County Office of Human Rights. “This chemical thing is something new, as opposed to an attempt to burn a cross.”
Sean Ryan, general manager of Apex Grounds Management in Ellicott City, said any type of over-the-counter weed killer could burn such images into alawn.
“All that you would need is Roundup,” he said. “You can buy it at any Home Depot. It could probably be done with bleach or gasoline, also.”
Howard police define a hate crime as a crime motivated by a person?s race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. A hate bias incident is fueled by the same motivations, but does not rise to the level of a crime.
