A 3.3m cross was stolen from a church and set on fire next to the home of a black family, igniting anger and disbelief in a prosperous, mostly white central California community that hasn’t seen a hate crime in nearly a decade.
Police assigned extra patrols to the neighborhood in Arroyo Grande and rewards were offered for information leading to an arrest. Church leaders were urged to mention the family in their prayers.
“I was horrified,” said Reverend Stephanie Raphael, president of the San Luis Obispo Ministerial Association. “We live in a paradise and I think the first thought was: ‘This can’t really be real.’”
The cross was stolen from a garden at St John’s Lutheran Church weeks ago and set ablaze on Friday in a lot behind the house where the family lived, police Commander John Hough said.
A 19-year-old woman awoke about 12:30am and saw the flaming cross from her bedroom window. Arriving officers doused burning pieces of wood with a garden hose.
A telephone call to the house was not answered on Tuesday.
Police declined to release the names of the family members because the incident was considered a hate crime — the first since 2002 in the city of 17,000 people in mostly rural San Luis Obispo County, a region of vast farms, picturesque small towns and a state university campus.
FBI agents and investigators from the state Department of Justice and San Luis Obispo County were involved in the arson and hate crime probe. No suspects had been identified and few tips were being received, even though US$3,500 in rewards were offered.
There was no evidence that an organized racist group was involved, Hough said.
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