EPD
Graffiti found in Eureka
A series of taggings were found around Arcata and Eureka, depicting a figure being hung, with a flower in one of its hands, on the morning of September 18th. Both Arcata and Eureka Police Departments quickly launched investigations.
Citizens around Humboldt quickly believed these paintings were of a depiction of a black man being hung, and these taggings were of racist intention.
“I don’t know that this is a threat, or that it is intended to be a commentary on race, it may be but I don’t know,” APD Lieutenant Luke Scown said.
Kerri Stone, a worker at Barnes Arcata Family Drug pharmacy, drove into work that morning, and stumbled on the graffiti as soon as she got there.
“I don’t think it’s positive, and I don’t think it helps people,” Stone said. “People need all the help they can get these days and that’s really awful to see.”
Along with the paintings, a series of words went with it. While some were only tagged with “KUUM,” which is assumed to be the artist tag, others were tagged with “Don’t be the next…” and “This was never their land to extract from.”
On a building around Samoa Blvd and K street, a similar depiction of a hanging man was accompanied by a series of other graffiti tagged presumably the same person. These taggings were depictions of nude women with devilish horns, but still containing the same flower planted in the corner, and the “KUUM” tag along with it.
“They’re different and seem to be more art based, so I’m not sure what this is,” Scown said.
In a press release from EPD. They stated that this case is currently being investigated as felony vandalism, and that they have no clear motive identified.
While people via social media have made their guesses, nothing has been able to be narrowed down.
“I’ve done some looking on the internet and I can’t find anything that seems to be directly connected to it,” Scown said.
EPD asks anyone with information to contact the department’s criminal investigations unit at (707) 441-4300, as this is still an active investigation.