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[Brooke Anderson]

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Thursday, April 17, 2003 >News > News Story


Anti-war activists claim harrassment

Jen Mullholand
The Daily Illini

Stolen yard signs were just the beginning of the vandalism that 
members of the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort organization have 
experienced in the past month, members said.

AWARE member Ricky Baldwin said members of the group have been the 
victims of pranks ranging from stolen signs to spray-painted hate 
graffiti and property destruction since the beginning of the war in 
Iraq. An unknown offender sprayed Baldwin's car with insulating foam 
around the driver's side door and the hood while it was parked in the 
driveway of his Champaign home, he said.

"This is a whole new thing," Baldwin said of the vandalism.

Baldwin had an anti-war bumper sticker on his car that he believed 
prompted the vandalism.

"They are targeting people with anti-war signs," he said.

AWARE member and Urbana resident Joan Nelshoppen had a 3-foot tall 
white wooden dove stolen from the front yard of her home on Oregon 
Street. She said the dove originally said "NO IRAQ WAR," but her 
family changed the message to "END IRAQ WAR" once the conflict 
started on March 20. The dove was vandalized on three separate 
occasions by unknown persons before it was stolen on April 5, 
Nelshoppen said.

"It was really beautiful," Nelshoppen said of the dove, which was 
originally built for an American bicentennial parade in 1976.

"This is nothing compared with what the people of Iraq are 
suffering," she said. "I really strongly believe in peace."

Baldwin said vandalism has increased since the war started. AWARE 
members were instructed by local police to report any vandalism, 
Baldwin said.

"This is happening in clusters," Baldwin said. "The people who are 
doing it, they are obviously not brave people because they wouldn't 
be doing it at night."

Urbana police Sgt. Sylvia Griffet said that the number of incidents 
reported was small.

"We really haven't had much of a problem," Griffet said.

Mark Thompson attended a pro-America rally and said he couldn't 
believe incidents in connection with the war protesters were still 
happening.

"In this world we live in today, (the vandalism) doesn't surprise me 
a bit," Thompson said.

AWARE member Lisa Chason said there was a series of dead animals 
lining the front of her driveway when she and her husband returned 
home from vacation on March 30.

"It's a kind of harassment," Chason said.

Chason said that the corpses of a large opossum with a mouse in its 
mouth, a skunk, a squirrel and a rabbit lined the driveway. She 
called the Urbana police and WCIA Channel 3 news station, which ran a 
story on the incident.

Chason said over the next two weeks, dead squirrels were placed in 
her driveway. Chason said the Urbana police told her the squirrels 
had been shot and left in the front yard.

"It felt very aggressive and threatening," Chason said. "But mostly 
we felt really bad for the poor animals trying to make this sick 
person's point."

Baldwin said the vandalism was "annoying and a little troubling" but 
was not going to dissuade members of AWARE from their anti-war stance.

"They are trying to intimidate us but they are not going to," Baldwin 
said. "There are much more serious ramifications to this war than a 
little vandalism."

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