Joe and Pat Jude’s returned from visiting their daughter over Thanksgiving to find their rental property completely trashed.
Not only did vandals destroy their home, but they covered the walls with swastikas and the words “white power” — in addition to the N-word.
The vandals stole the refrigerator from their kitchen, poured concrete down the drains in their bathroom and kicked down the railings on the stairs.
“They hit every cabinet with paint,” Pat Jude said. “They hit every wall with paint. They hit every appliance, they poured paint into the appliances. They poured cement down the drains.”
Unfortunately, this isn’t Pat and Jude’s first dealing with racism. In 2010, their son Jay committed suicide at the age of 16 after the family says he was bullied for being bi-racial.
“We got through that,” Pat told local news WCPO. “You never get over it, but then you come in here, and it’s the same kind of stuff.”
The family is asking for help identifying who is responsible.
“If anybody saw anything… please help us solve this crime,” Pat said. “Somebody must have seen something.”
Police have collected evidence and are said to be actively investigating the incident. The family has also set up a Gofundme page. It reads:
We have been been married for 34 years and have never dealt with this level of hate and bigotry. We lived in the south for 23 years prior to moving to Cincinnati and never experienced anything like this. We moved to Cincinnati in 2006 and we lost our son to suicide in 2010. We reside in Loveland and he was treated very racist because he was a biracial young man. He was called the N-word, and other unacceptable terms by his fellow students and residents of the town. One of his teachers even called him stupid in front of the entire class. Unfortunately, with all of this negativity, we lost a wonderful young man. He was intelligent and caring and accepted all people regardless the color of their skin.
Our only other child, our daughter, received her Masters degree in Cincinnati and purchased her first home in Price Hill. This was the first home she owned as a young adult. She lived here for over five years until she was promoted and move to Chicago about one year ago. She put so much love and care into this house and really loved living in the Price Hill community. This was the house that was demolished with this crime of hate and cowardice.
When she moved, we took over watching the house for her. The prior tenant had just moved out and we were ready to move in the new tenant on December 1. Since it would be vacant for a few days we checked it the evening prior to leaving town and made sure it was locked up tight. We then went to spend Thanksgiving with our daughter as we do every year. While we were gone, sometime between Thanksgiving day and Monday, November 28 someone climbed in the window of the upstairs floor and demolished our house. Not only demolished our house but brought such hate and racism into her home by spray painting swastikas and white power all over. They wrecked every room. Nothing was spared. They even poured cement down the pipes. We had wanted to move to that home in a few years but this situation hurts so much I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to do so without remembering the hate that was brought into our home.
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