Broken window a racial crime?

PLAINFIELD -- A teenage love affair likely inspired a nasty pre-Halloween trick at a Plainfield family's home.

Tracey Giboney awoke Friday to find the front window of their house smashed and two patio bricks on the floor.

One brick had a curse word scrawled on it, the other, a racial slur.

The incident happened sometime after 11 p.m. Oct. 29 in the 24000 block of Champion Drive.

"We feel this involves (the resident's) son, who is an African American, and the white girl he's dating," said Police Chief Don Bennett.

Investigators plan to interview a few more people, but should have enough evidence to file charges in the incident by the end of this week, Bennett said.

Giboney said she knew her 17-year-old son's girlfriend's family did not approve of their relationship.

So when she saw the bricks, she called her son right away.

He said his girlfriend mentioned her brother as the probable culprit.

Giboney also called police, who she feels have been dragging their feet on the investigation.

Giboney said she tracked down the patio the bricks came from, as well as a neighbor who said he saw the incident.

She told police about the bricks and the eyewitness, but said she has not received any update from police on the case.

"I plan to take this as far as I can," Giboney said. "I'm not going to allow anybody to get away with this. I refuse to allow somebody to intimidate me in any way."

For months Giboney's son has been banned from his girlfriend's house, and his girlfriend has been banned from Giboney's house, she said.

"When I found out they didn't approve of the relationship, that (Giboney's son) could no longer go over to their home and they disapproved of it, I told them she could no longer come over here. I stopped her from coming over quite a few months ago," she said.

This is the first time Giboney, a 14-year resident of Plainfield, has been the victim of a racially-motivated crime, she said.

"When (racially motivated crimes) occur in Plainfield, I think there's a little more notoriety than when it occurs in other communities," Bennett said, mentioning a Klu Klux Klan meeting held in Plainfield in 1922.

On June 3 that year, about 50,000 Klu Klux Klan members gathered at Fraser's Woods, which at that time was located about two miles south of Plainfield.

They reportedly conducted a ceremony initiating 3,000 new members that night, and were gone early the next morning.

Despite that bit of history, Plainfield overall has had about the same amount of racially motivated crime reported as other communities, if not less, Bennett said.

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