The Kensington Police Department is investigating a suspected hate-motivated offense after an anti-Black slur was found on a footbridge near the Confederation Trail in central Prince Edward Island.
The incident was reported to the police by the Royal Canadian Legion after a walker noticed the graffiti on a wooden bridge connecting a legion park to the trail. The graffiti is believed to have been added within the last few weeks, and police are seeking footage from video surveillance cameras and asking people with doorbell cameras to check for possible evidence.
Constable James Gotell stated that the footbridge leads to a park where the Royal Canadian Legion maintains a war memorial, and that other graffiti in the area may have been done by the same person. The police are dedicating significant resources to the investigation and are urging anyone with information to come forward.
“This investigation is being treated as a suspected hate-motivated offence,” the force said in a social media post Wednesday afternoon. “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,” said Constable Gotell. 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.
“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.”
