'Someone knows something'

CHENEY — Police are investigating an incident of racist vandalism taking place on the morning of March 18 at Eagle Point Apartments. The vandalism was directed against Eastern Washington University students.

According to the police report, one of the victims, a white male, showed up at the police station just after 10 a.m. to report that racial slurs had been written on his apartment door. The man told Officer Jacob McKinney that at about 7:15 that morning, he and one of his two roommates, both of whom are Black, went to lift weights, returning to the apartment an hour later.

“When they got home, they noticed the damage to the vehicle,” Sgt. Nate Conley said.

The report states both mirrors to the white male’s truck had been broken off. When they went to the apartment to tell their other roommate about the incident, they discovered a racial slur written on the front door.

Both men told McKinney they did not recall seeing anything written on their door when they left to lift weights. All three stated they do not hold any grudges or conflicts with anyone and could not think of anyone who would commit such acts, although one noted that the day before, March 17, they had returned to their apartment in the truck and noticed four while males and one white female standing in a circle in the parking lot outside.

The group looked at the trio as they exited the truck and walked to their apartment.

“(Victim) did not feel that they looked at them in an ‘abnormal’ way and didn’t get the feeling that they could be involved,” McKinney wrote in the report.

Conley said investigators returned to the scene on March 20 to attempt to locate any possible surveillance video, but found none. Police are investigating the incident as two counts of malicious harassment (hate crime) and one count of third-degree malicious mischief.

“There are not suspects or witnesses at this time,” Conley said.

Officials at the city are asking the public’s help in solving the crime, issuing a condemnation of the incident on their website.

“Racism will not be tolerated in the Cheney community and we use all our City resources to investigate this incident, identify the responsibility parties and bring them to justice,” officials wrote. “Someone knows something. If you saw something, say something.”

That sentiment was echoed by EWU President Dr. David May. In a strongly worded statement March 18, May condemned not only the Eagle Point incident but recent hate-crime attacks on Asian-Americans — notably the shootings in Atlanta, Ga. — and said it was time for everyone to “choose a side.”

“There is no middle ground. There is no room for equivocation or justification,” May wrote. “The latest attack in our community against one of our students is not because someone had too much to drink or because they made a mistake. This attack was on someone because they are African-American, period. It was meant to dehumanize and degrade one of our own. I refuse to agree to that as acceptable. To choose that side is to choose to be outside of the core values of EWU, to be outside of what our country must become, and to be on the wrong side of history.”

“Someone knows who did this,” May continued. “That someone right now has no choice but to choose a side and that choice is right now. Choosing silence in this moment is choosing the side of the evil, hatred, racism and violence that this attack represents. There is nothing else to be said except apologetics, there is no principled argument to be made on the other side.”

May urged anyone who has knowledge of the incident to call Cheney police, who can be reached at 509-535-9233, EWU police or “a trusted friend or advisor to help you share what you know.”

The incident is the latest racist attack in the city. In December 2019, police arrested two men involved in a vehicle vandalism spree, including spray painting a van at Garden Manor Apartments with racists slurs, eventually charging one of the individuals with a hate crime.

Earlier in April a 26-year-old man was charged with a hate crime after harassing a couple at the Dollar Tree Store. And in October 2018, police were advised of individuals going about the city posting “Identity Evropa” stickers on the backs of stops signs — including several near Eastern Washington University.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Identity Evropa “is at the forefront of the racist ‘alt-right’s’ effort to recruit white, college-aged men and transform them into the fashionable new face of white nationalism.”

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.