Worker frustrated with racial graffiti

CHAPEL HILL

The longtime employee tells /*Eyewitness News*/ the graffiti has been a problem for months.

He's seen racial slurs, the letters KKK and a noose drawn on a bathroom wall, but his complaints have fallen on deaf ears.

Wednesday night he confronted the town council armed with explosive pictures.

"The first time I just let it go and then last week, it happened again," Gerald Neville says. "I said well enough is enough."

A quick glance at the photos and it's easy to understand his frustration.

When Neville uses the bathroom at the Chapel Hill Public Works headquarters he sees a noose carefully drawn on a sign. His name is written next to the N word and the F word, condemning the Black Public Workers Association.

According to Neville, "It puts salt on the wounds when the town lets it stay up there at weeks and months at a time."

He says 666 and KKK etched in the pipes was removed last week. He's reported the problem to supervisors and the police department.

"I ain't talked to no investigating officers," Neville says. "How can you do an investigation? In fact, they haven't talked to anyone out here."

Neville showed his pictured to the town council Wednesday night and members expressed outrage.

The town manager says an investigation in underway, but when Neville returned from lunch Thursday, he discovered a sex symbol under a toilet paper roll.

In one of the pictures Neville took, the phrase "up yours Neville Devil" was captured.

After working 20 years for Chapel Hill, Neville says the situation is not the norm and is hurtful and stressful.

He says, "If it's necessary, close the bathroom down. Shut it down. It's a sad situation when grown men resort to stuff like this."

Eyewitness News requested a statement from Chapel Hill. Wednesday night the town manager vowed that if they find out who did it, the person will be punished, possibly fired.

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