Yahoo News Police seeking person who vandalized Kensington footbridge with racist graffiti
The Kensington police department is looking for whoever left an anti-Black slur on a footbridge near the Confederation Trail in central Prince Edward Island.
"This investigation is being treated as a suspected hate-motivated offence," the force said in a social media post Wednesday afternoon.
Const. James Gotell said the Royal Canadian Legion reported the crime after a walker told the group about graffiti on a wooden bridge that links a legion park to the trail.
"By the time that we arrived there, somebody from the public had actually come with paint and had painted over … that comment," he said.
Police believe the graffiti was added sometime this month, likely within the last couple of weeks.
Gotell said they're seeking footage from video surveillance cameras, and asking people with doorbell cameras to check for possible evidence.
Kensington police Const. James Gotell says there is other graffiti in the park that could have been done by the same perpetrator. (Wayne Thibodeau/CBC)
"We have other graffiti that was located in the park, that we think may have been done by the same person, that's been photographed," he said.
Those images have been sent out to all police forces across the Island in the hope that someone will come forward to say they recognize the vandal's work.
We're obviously going to put a lot of resources and time and effort into trying to determine who did this. — Const. James Gotell
"I've been working here for the last couple of years and this is the first time I've been involved in [an] investigation like that," Gotell said.
"This is the first instance in Kensington I'm aware of where we've had any type of hate-motivated crime… We're obviously going to put a lot of resources and time and effort into trying to determine who did this."
Vandalism of property might lead to a mischief charge, but Gotell said it is too early to say for sure.
"Ultimately it's going to be up to the Crown attorney, how they would prosecute a file, if we were to arrest the subject," he said.
"The fact that it was a hate-related crime would make that an aggravating factor for sentencing."
