Swastikas spray-painted on Texas veteran’s Biden sign and mailbox, couple says

Just days before Veterans Day, an army veteran and his wife discovered their mailbox and Biden-Harris campaign sign had been spray-painted with swastikas, the Texas couple says.

Anna Brown and her husband Bill, who served in the Vietnam War, found the swastikas outside their Tyler home Sunday morning, the Tyler Morning Telegraph reported.

The couple married 53 years said it’s not the first time they’ve had issues with their Joe Biden signs. Two campaign signs were stolen from their yard a few weeks earlier along with some lights and flowers, according to KYTX. Not long after, the couple put up a new sign.

“We didn’t have no trouble until Biden won the election Saturday,” he told the Telegraph. “So Saturday night, I guess somebody came through, and painted my sign.”

Photos show pink swastikas — an emblem of the Nazi party that has since become associated with white nationalism — covering the couple’s mailbox, and a large one painted over the campaign sign.

“There are fifteen houses on this block,” Anna Brown told KYTX. “How can they just pick at my house?”

Since the incident, neighbors have stepped up to show their support for the couple.

Two men showed up to help clean the paint off the couple’s mailbox, KLTV reported. Amy Ames, the Browns’ neighbor, and her son wrote a supportive message in chalk in front of the couple’s house: love thy neighbor.

“To be the only family that’s targeted, it could be that it’s a liberal sign in a predominantly conservative community, or it could be racially motivated, which is sad,” Ames told the Telegraph. The couple are Black. “I have friends on both sides of the political aisle, and I haven’t met anybody who thinks this is OK. It’s pretty abhorrent.”

Tyler police told KYTX that they’re investigating, but don’t have any suspects or video of the incident. Police are asking anyone with information to contact the department, adding that the person or people who did it would face criminal mischief charges.

Bill Brown says it hurts to receive this kind of treatment, but that he isn’t a stranger to it.

“Here I am, a Vietnam veteran, and haven’t been treated like this since I got out of the service, when they didn’t welcome Vietnam veterans back to the country,” Brown told KLTV. “All this stuff is my Veterans Day. This is what they think of me.”

Tyler is roughly 100 miles east of Dallas.

This story was originally published November 10, 2020 at 2:17 PM.