Lunenburg Police: No Evidence Linking High School Football Players To Racist Graffiti
LUNENBURG (CBS) – Lunenburg police announced Monday that there is no conclusive evidence that anyone on the high school football team is linked to racist graffiti sprayed on the home of a player last month.
In a statement obtained by WBZ-TV, police said they are "very confident" that a conclusion to the mystery is near.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Lana Jones reports
Lunenburg Police: No Evidence Linking High School Football Players To Racist Graffiti
"Based upon our investigation to date, we have not found any conclusive evidence linking any present member of the Lunenburg High school Football team to the hate crime incident reported on November 15, 2013.
This statement relates only to the graffiti painted on a resident's home and has nothing whatsoever to do with any football game related issues that have been investigated by the School District.
We take matters such as this type of hate crime very serious. Consequently this investigation is ongoing and we are very confident that a conclusion will be forthcoming."
The graffiti was scrawled on the home of 13-year-old Lunenburg High School football player Isaac Phillips. His mother, Andrea Brazier, is white and his father, Anthony Williams, is black.
Phillips' family claims Isaac has been racially targeted since September. They believe someone on the football team is responsible, but have stopped cooperating with police.
"I'm not pleased with the way things are going right at this moment," Lunenburg Police Chief Jim Marino said Monday. "The FBI is working very hard and so [are] our detectives but we have had some issues that we're trying to overcome in terms of cooperation."
The superintendent cancelled the football team's final game on Thanksgiving after no one came forward to take responsibility.
"We would have liked to have resolved this much earlier," said Chief Marino. "Unfortunately this is how police investigations go."
Les Szabady is the father of one of the three senior captains on the football team.
"It's fantastic," he said of the police findings. "All the parents knew it couldn't have been one of our kids. They're really a good, good bunch of kids and this last three weeks have been awful. I mean, they took a tradition away from them without any proof."
Police say they are confident they will have the person responsible soon.
"Hopefully we can catch the coward that did this and actually sat there and let our children take the blame," Szabady said.
WBZ-TV's Jim Armstrong contributed to this report.
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