Homes vandalized with racist graffiti in Sammamish neighborhood

Feb 21, 2019, 6:29 AM

(KIRO 7)

KIRO 7 Seattle

King County sheriff’s detectives are investigating a racist vandalism spree in Sammamish.

Overnight, someone spray painted racist words on garages and walls of four homes in the Klahanie neighborhood.

Detectives are hoping neighbors’ surveillance cameras captured the suspect. Investigators said so far, they have no leads.

Some neighbors started a gofundme account to raise money to help clean off the paint and to buy magnetic stickers saying, “Hate has no home here.”

In response to the incident, Sammamish city officials released this statement:

Last night, as many of us were sleeping soundly in our homes, a vile and cowardly criminal prowled the Klahanie neighborhood and spray-painted hateful, racist graffiti on several homes.

While the Sammamish Police are investigating this hate crime, we are sharing this information in a public forum because we want it to be perfectly clear that Sammamish, this community, our community, will not stand for this kind of behavior.

Here in Sammamish we are fortunate to have the diversity of races, religions, cultures and traditions that we do – because a diverse community strengthens and enriches all aspects of the lives of our residents, and better prepares future generations to live and thrive in a global world.

We invite those who struggle to understand the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion in Sammamish to consider these facts:

The Seattle Times had an article yesterday about King County having an immigrant population of more than 500,000, and that one in four residents are foreign born.

The 2015 American Community Survey estimated a quarter of Sammamish residents are foreign born.

Nearly 27 percent of our residents speak a language other than English at home. The state of Washington has no official language. Neither does the United States.

Hate has no place here in Sammamish, or anywhere in our country.

America is now, has always been, and will continue to be a country of immigrants. That is what makes us great, and what gives us our strength.

We will work to ensure that this event will not divide us; we will use it bring us closer together and make us stronger every day.

Your Sammamish City Council

Christie Malchow, Mayor

Karen Moran, Deputy Mayor

Jason Ritchie, Councilmember

Ramiro Valderrama, Councilmember

Chris Ross, Councilmember

Tom Hornish, Councilmember

Pam Stuart, Councilmember