A swastika, the letters “KKK” and the phrase “Go back to Africa” were discovered scrawled across the walls of New York Giants fullback Nikita Whitlock’s apartment in Moonachie, New Jersey, Tuesday evening after his residence was ransacked by burglars, the football player said Wednesday.
Mr. Whitlock, 25, said the incident happened while he and his family were having dinner away from their Bergen County residence, a local CBS affiliate reported. He initially spotted a crude swastika scrawled across one of his walls upon returning home that evening before finding other hate-filled messages left throughout his basement apartment, he told the station, including some that the CBS affiliate described as too offensive to air.
In addition to having his apartment vandalized, the athlete said he was robbed of several video-game systems and some jewelry as well.
“It just re-establishes that no matter where you are, no matter who you are, this can happen to you,” he told CBS2.
“It’s very disgusting, actually; it’s very disheartening,” added his wife, Ashley Whitlock. “You hear about things that do happen, but you never think, ’Oh, this is going to happen to me.’ “
“It’s about to be 2017,” she continued. “Oppression, violence, racism, hatred, violence, there’s no need for that.”
Tuesday’s break-in was the second the athlete has endured during the last six months, and a robbery that took place around Thanksgiving was still under investigation by law enforcement as of this week, the CBS affiliate reported.
Mr. Whitlock, a second-year Giant, is currently in the midst of serving a 10-game unpaid suspension after he tested positive in September for performance-enhancing substances.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a watchdog group that monitors hate crimes, recently said that it was made aware of 60 reports involving “swastika vandalism,” said to have occurred after in the week after Donald Trump was elected president last month.
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