Vandals tag Veterans Hall
Sam Williams, Managing Editor
Lassen County Times
December 30 2014

As anti-racial discrimination protests erupt in big cities and racial tensions roll
all across the nation in the aftermath of the recent deaths of two unarmed black men
at the hands of police, local vandals joined the act recently by tagging the
Veterans Memorial Hall on Main Street in Susanville.

The three tagging incidents include an expletive toward the police, a rest-in-peace message to Trayvon Martin, 17, who was shot death by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch coordinator from Sanford, Florida on Feb. 26 2012 (the taggers misspelled his name as Travon), and a second rest-in-peace message to Michael Brown, 18, who was shot and killed by Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9, 2014.

"We found the tagging on Thursday night, Dec. 11, during our Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting," Ron Wood wrote in an email to the newspaper.  "It was most likely done on Wednesday night."

Wood had some harsh words for the parents of the taggers who vandalized the
county-owned building.  "I'm not blaming the stupidity of our youth when they took
the liberty the other night by defacing the community Veterans Memorial Building,"
wrote Wood, a citizen who has frequently expressed his concern about local taggers
and their possible gang affiliations.  "It's obvious to me and other veterans, the
tagging of our building with their meaningless nonsense shows us they lack the
ability to understand the issues at hand as it relates between law enforcement and
criminals. 

This unacceptable criminal behavior is a total reflection on their
parents, not on the youth who displaced the lack of intellectual acuity.  If the
parents had provided their children with the proper parental guidance while growing
up, we would not be experiencing these criminal acts in our community.  I always
like to give a solution to the problem - move idiots."

Susanville Police Chief Tom Downing said his department is investigating the
incident, and he encouraged anyone with information to call the department at
257-5603.