A black-owned auto shop that was graffitied with racist imagery found that security camera footage showed the two suspects allegedly behind the vandalism were also black.
“I mean, I’m not bothering anybody. I’m just out here trying to do business. I don’t really know anybody out here,” said Dwayne Haynesworth, who owns the auto body and repair shop in Spring Lake, North Carolina.
For the last several weeks, vandals have spray-painted a swastika, Ku Klux Klan messages, and the phrase “please leave” on cars on his lot, prompting him to install security cameras to catch the perpetrators. The swastika was also notably drawn backward on one of its arms.
One day after installing the cameras, footage showed two young suspects who appeared to be black reportedly trying to steal one of the cars on Haynesworth’s lot. Some of the cars were also damaged during the incident.
‘RELIEVED’: BUBBA WALLACE BACKS DOWN AFTER INSISTING ‘IT’S A STRAIGHT-UP NOOSE’
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The incident is being investigated by local police, who have asked the public for assistance in tracking down the identities of the suspects.
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The scene mirrors other instances in which antisemitic or racist vandalism was later discovered not to be hate crimes, including last summer when the FBI launched an investigation into a rope found in a NASCAR driver’s garage.
The FBI completed its investigation of the noose-styled rope and said NASCAR’s only black driver, Bubba Wallace, “was not the target of a hate crime” and that the rope was only used as a pull-down in the garage.
