Hendersonville, N.C. – A white North Carolina man accused of defacing a memorial honoring Martin Luther King Jr. has been charged with ethnic intimidation, according to authorities. Heath Justus, 31, was arrested at a park in Hendersonville on April 28 after witnesses spotted him drawing on the image of the civil rights leader, news outlets reported Monday, citing Police Chief Blair Myhand. Myhand told WLOS-TV that Justus used a permanent marker to scrawl “antisemitic depictions” on the memorial, in addition to other symbols and phrases. The graffiti was “clearly designed to provoke a reaction, and not in a good way,” the Hendersonville Times-News quoted Myhand as saying. The president of the Henderson County branch of the NAACP said she was “alarmed” by the act, adding that she was “just shocked that someone would take the time to deface this monument.
via antisemtism.co.il: Memorial honoring Martin Luther King Jr. vandalized