Shorewood police are searching for the man who was caught on camera vandalizing “Black Lives Matter” signs with blue paint.
One of the residents who was targeted said Monday night’s round of vandalism was far from the first.
"(These are) actually the 15th and 16th signs that have been damaged," said Chuck Carlson.
Carlson got so fed up he put hidden surveillance cameras in his front yard. Around 11 p.m. Monday night, he saw who's responsible.
"I got a notice on my phone that my motion detector camera had gone off," Carlson said.
Surveillance video shows a man pouring blue paint all over his signs.
"You could see it was not a kid, it was an adult who did it," Carlson said.
Carlson said he started putting “Black Lives Matter” signs in his yard as a message of unity after someone allegedly harassed a neighborhood family.
"I was made aware that an African American family was told by their neighbor that they were not welcome in this community," Carlson said.
Now, if you drive through Shorewood you'll see the signs in several yards. Lynne Milner started the neighborhood movement.
"I decided to go online and buy 100 signs," she said.
Vandals also targeted her Monday night, but it all started last summer.
"At first, they took a stencil and they wrote ‘racist,’ so it said ‘Black Racist Matter’," Milner said.
Milner replaced her signs frequently over the past year.
"At first it made me scared, if they come to where I live they could hurt me," she said.
But the vandalism won't stop her.
"I'm going to keep buying them," she said.
Now that police are searching for the suspect, Carlson would like to see something bigger than an arrest.
"I hope that it creates a dialog with people who think that this is OK," he said.
If you know who's defacing the property you're asked to call Shorewood police.
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