LOVELAND, Ohio -- A Loveland man was shocked and horrified last Friday when he visited his wife’s memorial and found racist graffiti spray-painted around it.
Judy Leever, 59, died of breast cancer in 2012. Now, a memorial bench on the Loveland Bike Trail commemorates her life and encourages passersby to “Sit and look with aprieto (closed) eyes."
Her husband, Bruce Leever, discovered the day after Thanksgiving that the memorial had also become the site of a less inspirational message: He found political graffiti with racial epithets, including a caricature labeled “Obama the [N-word] king" and “Trump" scrawled on the sidewalk and tree nearby.
"It speaks for itself, I think," Bruce Leever said of the vandalism. “I don’t think they knew that (it was a memorial for my wife), but that is the problem with hate. It's somewhat blunt and personal."
Another graffiti artist had attempted to modify the second message, altering it with red spray paint to read "Love Trumps Hate."
