Outrage over vandalism should be universal

Outrage over vandalism should be universal

Last Thursday (July 17), as I retrieved my morning paper, I was greeted with feces smeared over two "Obama for President" signs in my front yard. This was the second time a coward chose to trespass on my property and desecrate the signs. The first time, I found a large plastic grocery bag full of feces next to one of the signs. My response then was to place American flags next to the signs, hoping they would be respected.

This time, my wife and I decided to act. But we were appalled by the official reaction. Arlington Heights sent a sympathetic police officer whose main response was to suggest that we should remove the signs to avoid future incidents. The city clearly had no intention of protecting our constitutional, civil and property rights.

Next, my wife spent the day contacting the media, including your newspaper. Only CBS felt that this was an important enough incident for coverage. Your paper's response was that sign incidents were too common to bother covering this case. Too common? Not when the perpetrator bothers to collect feces and then smear it all over! Not when, as we learned from your response and a discussion with the Wheeling Township Democratic Party, there is a pattern of such behavior.

Both Democrats and Republicans have expressed their outrage to us over this travesty, this attempt to quash legitimate political discussion and to disparage a human being. They were also shocked by both the city's and this paper's response. We hope that this paper will start to share its concern and express its outrage over such behavior before it escalates. And we hope that our community will never condone such acts regardless of a candidate's party, race, sex, or other characteristic with which an individual may disagree.

Mark Michaels

Arlington Heights