Two Sacramento City Council members wake to red paint splattered in front of homes
Two Sacramento City Council members woke up to the burst of firecrackers and found red paint splashed in the streets, sidewalks and driveways in front of their houses, they said Wednesday morning.
District 5 Councilman Jay Schenirer, who represents Sacramento’s Curtis Park and Oak Park neighborhoods, told The Sacramento Bee that someone “dumped a bucket of red latex paint and set off a bunch of firecrackers” around 3 a.m. Wednesday.
“There was some vandalism in my driveway and on the sidewalk,” he said.
Schenirer said the same thing happened to Councilwoman Angelique Ashby in North Natomas, who told The Bee she’d never previously had vandalism directed toward her home.
“I am disheartened and disappointed,” Ashby said.
Schenirer says he reported the vandalism to the police.
Spokesman Officer Karl Chan confirmed that the Sacramento Police Department “was made aware that we had two city council members’ residences that appeared to be vandalized overnight.” Chan said the department’s criminal intelligence unit has been assigned to investigate, and officers could be seen interviewing Schenirer’s neighbors later Wednesday morning.
“So far it’s a vandalism, and that’s what we’re investigating,” he said.
Schenirer spoke to The Bee outside his home as clean-up efforts were under way.
“There’s a lot of conversations we need to have in the city that are really important, and I hope that we’ll continue to do that,” he said. “I hope this doesn’t happen again, to myself or my colleagues or anyone in the city.”
In early June, as demonstrations proceeded in Sacramento amid nationwide protests condemning racial injustice following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a statue of John Sutter outside Sutter Health Medical Center in midtown was also defaced with red paint.
Sutter Health decided to remove the donated statue the following week.
This story was originally published July 1, 2020 at 10:27 AM.
