Whatcom pro-life group’s billboards have been vandalized before, but not like this
This isn’t the first time the Lynden Human Life group has had the pro-life billboards it displays around Whatcom County vandalized.
In fact, Lynden Human Life’s Juanita Verbree told The Bellingham Herald in an interview Friday that the group has had billboards hit three times previously — “about once every couple of years.”
But she said they’ve never had multiple billboards defaced on the same night — at least, that is, not until Jan. 11.
“We were getting ready for our Cemetery of the Innocent, which we do every year, putting 3,600 white wooden crosses out to remember the innocent that have died, and we showed up in the morning, and that’s when we saw all the signs,” Verbree told The Herald. “We’d been advertising it in the papers, so we think maybe that’s why it happened the night before.”
The group reported the spray-painted vandalism it found on three billboards to the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office the morning of Jan. 12, and Verbree said they later found a fourth banner that had been defaced.
According to information provided by Chief Deputy Kevin Hester in an email Thursday to The Bellingham Herald, among those hit were billboards in the 4700 block of Hannegan Road and another in the 5700 block of Guide Meridian.
“Besides the wording, there was a symbol commonly used by the Anarchist movement on a couple of the signs,” Hester told The Herald. “At this time there are no known suspects.”
The group was not the only one hit, as Hester said the deputy who responded also noticed a couple of real estate signs in the 300 block of West Smith Road were vandalized with the same type of spray paint. Hester estimated the total damage at $750.
To help reduce the chance of vandalism, Verbree said the group has moved the billboards to different locations around the county in recent years, but even that didn’t help in this instance.
“We have a lot more repairs this time, and we wonder if they will be safe,” Verbree told The Herald. “We’re not giving up, though. We remain strong, and we’re going to continue on.”
