‘We won’t be bullied.’ Palo Alto’s oldest black church vandalized, CA cops say
Members of Palo Alto’s oldest black church have a message to send after a vandal spray painted graffiti on their walls: “We won’t be bullied.”
The Palo Alto Police Department responded to a call on Dec. 28. They arrived to the University AME Zion Church in Palo Alto, California and found that the wall facing the restroom and the restroom doors had been vandalized, police said, according to Palo Alto online.
Someone had spray painted “F— God,” “Why Jesus why,” and “God causes pain,” Palo Alto online reported.
Pastor Kaloma Smith told McClatchy News that the church is looking into adding more security measures following the incident, including lighting and surveillance.
“It’s not only about the physical damage, but the fact that a sacred space we have called home since 1965 has been desecrated by someone,” Smith told The Mercury News. “This attack and violation of our property has steeled us to be more focused on reaching our community. We will not shrink, we will not hide, we won’t be bullied.”
Someone who saw the church get vandalized said he saw something happening but didn’t mention anything until the morning after, The Mercury News reported.
Smith also reached out to churches on the same street, including a Presbyterian, Korean, and Latter Day Saints Church, and told CBS Bay Area that none of them had been vandalized.
“There wasn’t any specific racial overtones in the writing but the choice of location makes me wonder if they chose us specifically because we are an African American church,” he said, CBS Bay Area reported.
Instead of shuttering the church’s doors, Smith has renamed this weekend’s service “Sunday Solidarity.”
“When somebody does something like this, it’s intimidating because it forces you to change your habits. People will close in, cloister up, only look for people they know,” Smith told McClatchy News. “That’s what I mean by bullying. It changes peoples’ behavior and we said, we refuse to slow down in our work in social justice and community outreach. That’s what we mean when we say we refuse to be bullied.”
Police describe the suspect as a white man between 35 and 45 years old, 5 feet 11 inches, with “blondish short hair,” Palo Alto online reported.
The vandalism also incurred more than $400 in damage and can be prosecuted as a felony, Palo Alto online reported.