Vandals burn swastikas into jewish family’s yard

Vandals burned swastikas and obscenities into the lawn of a suburban Jewish family Sunday, splattering windows with eggs and defecating on the front porch of their two-story home.

Two swastikas were spray-painted in the road in front of Ginger Ragans’ two-story home and a third was etched onto her lawn, along with the word “Fascist” and an obscenity scrawled in the grass. Her trees were draped with toilet paper and someone had urinated and defecated on the family’s porch and discarded the soiled toilet paper in nearby bushes.

Ragans, who has lived in the neighborhood for 10 years, said the incident likely was the work of neighborhood teens retaliating against her for her work as a neighborhood liaison for a community watchdog program. In a recent edition of the community’s newsletter, she mentioned that cameras had caught groups of teens hanging around the tennis courts long after the county’s midnight curfew.

Although this is not the first time neighborhood homes have been vandalized, she said she’s concerned the culprits are becoming more aggressive.

“I could handle the toilet paper and the egging,” Ragans, 36, said. “But for them to put swastikas and write ‘fascist,’ that turned it personal.”

Ragans said she woke up at 8 a.m. and looked out her second-floor window to see toilet papers hanging from trees on her yard.

“Oh my goodness, we’ve been rolled,” she called out to her husband, Lee.

Lee Ragans, 36, and son, Aaron, 10, looked out and saw two swastikas spray-painted in the road in front of their two-story house.

They went outside and found their house had been egged. A third swastika had been etched on to their lawn, along with the word “Fascist” and an obscenity etched in the grass with acid or some sort of weed-killing chemical.

Someone had urinated and defecated on their porch, and discarded the soiled toilet paper they used to clean themselves up in the bushes next to it.

Ragans, a stay-at-home mom, is certain the vandalism is the work of neighborhood teens, retaliating against her for mentioning in the community newsletter that cameras had caught a lot of “unsavory” kids hanging around the tennis courts long after the county’s midnight curfew.

She said she reported the incident to the police as a hate crime.

“I’m not afraid, I’m alarmed,” Ragans said. “If they are capable of something like this, who knows what else they are capable of.”

Police are unsure whether the incident constituted a “hate crime,” said county police spokesman Darren Moloney.

“If it was that serious, the responding officer would have gone up the chain of command,” notifying his supervisor and getting a detective immediately on the scene, he said.

Moloney said a report was taken and forwarded to detectives. “A detective will be assigned to the case.”

Meanwhile, neighbors, aghast at the acts, flocked to Ragans home Sunday to assist in the clean-up. So many turned up that family had to turn people away, Ragans said.

Today, the Ragans will enlist professional help to get rid of the swastikas and hose down the house