A Black family put up a BLM sign. Then they found their cars on fire and Trump graffiti painted on their garage, they say.
Texas police have launched an investigation after a Black family awoke last week to find their two cars on fire and “Trump 20” spray-painted on their garage door.
When Jayla Gipson and Charles Crawford awoke to one of their cars engulfed in flames outside their home in a Dallas suburb last week, the couple initially assumed it was an accident, they told WFAA.
But when the smoke cleared, they noticed the spray-painted message on their garage: “TRUMP 20.”
The family’s parents, Jayla Gipson and Charles Crawford told WFAA that they believe the incident was triggered after they erected a Black Lives Matter sign in their front garden in Little Elm, Texas.
“That sign was in my yard for less than two weeks and then all of a sudden we get a tragedy like this,” Ms Gipson told WFAA.
“I would have preferred they just take the sign. But to set the house on fire? That’s going way too far,” she added.
Ms Gipson said that her 21-year-old son first noticed the fire at around midnight on Wednesday 9 December, when he smelled smoke after he got up to go to the bathroom.
He immediately woke up the rest of the family, and they noticed that their two cars had been set on fire in their drive.
Ms Gipson said that the whole family, including their 12-year-old daughter who was asleep in her room next to the garage, were able to leave the house unharmed.
When they got outside, the family also saw that “Trump 20” had been spray-painted onto their garage door, and that their Black Lives Matter sign had been defaced with the same red paint.
“It’s definitely a hate crime,” Ms Gipson told NBC News earlier in the week.
“It’s horrible,” she added. “Had that sign not been in my yard, I don’t think this would have ever been an incident for us.”
The local fire and police departments quickly arrived at the scene and the fires were put out. The front bumpers of the cars were burned to ashes during the incident.
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