NAACP Official Is Target of Graffiti

The president of the Ventura County chapter of the NAACP said he was the target of racist graffiti this week for the second time since December.

John Hatcher, 59, an 18-year Oxnard resident, said Friday he was working in a garage he uses as an office about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday when he heard a car drive up to his Rhonda Street home.

When he went outside to retrieve something from his car, Hatcher said, he saw a bumper sticker on his vehicle with the words “Uphold Apartheid” and pro-apartheid symbols.

Hatcher, who has headed the local chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People for 10 years, said he immediately called the Oxnard Police Department.

The morning after the most recent incident, Hatcher said, he found the words “John Hatcher is a monkey man” spray-painted on the wall at the rear of his home. His post office box at the main Oxnard post office at 1961 N. C St. was also damaged, he said.

In the incident several months ago, vandals sprayed the words “We Is Apes” in two-foot-tall black letters on the garage of his home.

“It irritates the hell out of me,” Hatcher said, adding that he has no idea who might be responsible for the vandalism. “I would be shocked if I thought any of my neighbors would be a part of that,” he said.