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The Parks family, from left: Johnny, Jazlyn, Aria, Jennifer and Jordan.
A Town of Niagara man has been charged with a hate crime after authorities say he spray-painted a stark racist threat on the fence of a Black neighbor who lives four houses away.
Howard Murphy, 60, was arrested on a charge of criminal mischief as a hate crime, a felony, Niagara County officials announced Friday.
Murphy is accused of writing "kill all" Blacks – he used a racial epithet in place of the word "Blacks" – in large letters on the fence of the mixed-race Parks family.
The graffiti was discovered Monday morning, two days after the mass shooting by an accused white supremacist that killed 10 Black people at a Tops Markets in Buffalo.
Johnny Parks, who is Black, discovered the racist message scrawled on a white vinyl fence shortly before 6 a.m. Monday.
The incident stirred outrage after one of his daughters posted about it on social media. Community members showed up to paint over the threat and Home Depot employees replaced the damaged sections of fence.
Niagara County Sheriff Michael Filicetti and Niagara County District Attorney Brian Seaman said at a news conference that the graffiti investigation was a priority for their offices.
“We're going to take these complaints seriously, and we're going to bring them to closure with an arrest,” Filicetti said, “and we're going to hold these people accountable that want to do this. Again, there's no place for this in our community or anywhere else.”
Seaman said Murphy faces the highest possible charge for this offense.
“This is not being treated just as a property crime,” Seaman said. “It's being treated as a hate crime.”
Stephen Belongia, the special agent in charge of the Buffalo FBI office, said federal hate crime charges also are a possibility in the case.
Johnny Parks told The Buffalo News he doesn't know Murphy at all.
He said their only interaction came shortly after the Parks family moved onto the street, a decade ago, when he asked Murphy to pick up after his dog, which regularly relieved itself on the Parks’ lawn.
“He just walked off,” Parks recalled.
Parks said he’s glad someone was arrested for making the threat.
But he said he’s willing to sit down with Murphy at some point and even forgive him for what he’s accused of doing.
“You have it in your heart, you could forgive anyone,” Parks said. “You know, people do make mistakes. And, hopefully, this is a mistake that we can grow through as a community.”
The smart way to start your day. We sift through all the news to give you a concise, informative look at the top headlines and must-read stories every weekday.
I report on development, government, crime and schools in the northern Erie County suburbs. I grew up in the Town of Tonawanda and worked at the Post-Standard in Syracuse before joining The News in 2001. Email: swatson@buffnews.com
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The Parks family, from left: Johnny, Jazlyn, Aria, Jennifer and Jordan.
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