Tuesday, April 30, 2024

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Dem signs repeatedly vandalized

CHINLE

The Apache County Democrats say their campaign signs for Joe Biden, Mark Kelly and other Democratic candidates in the Window Rock/St. Michaels area have been vandalized four times now and they’re getting tired of it.

The signs have been painted over with the words “pedo,” presumably short for pedophile, “ACAB” (an acronym for “All cops are bastards”), and “corrupt.”

Precinct committee member Lenora Fulton said not only does she have to travel an hour and a half from her home in St. Johns, Arizona, to fix the signs, but she’s hurt that Navajos would do such a thing to other Navajos.

“It’s something you would expect to find in big cities, not our reservation,” she said. “We put our time, our energy into showing our support for the people we think would do a good job running our country and we would like to see our views respected as we respect other people’s views. In our tradition, words are sacred. You don’t just go around messing up other people’s words.”

She also worries about the vandals “creeping around after curfew in the dead of night” to deface the signs. “I hope they don’t get coronavirus, because I wouldn’t wish that on anybody,” she said.

Steven Begay, Apache County Democrats chairman, said he has no problem with people disagreeing with his politics, but this isn’t the way to do it.

“If you don’t like our signs, just put up your own darned signs,” he advised.

The party members said they hope whoever did this will be caught, but in the meantime, they’ll just keep fixing the signs. Their latest plan is to put a coat of paint-resistant gloss over them.

“We’re not going to just leave it, so they might as well stop doing it,” said Fulton.


About The Author

Cindy Yurth

Cindy Yurth was the Tséyi' Bureau reporter, covering the Central Agency of the Navajo Nation, until her retirement on May 31, 2021. Her other beats included agriculture and Arizona state politics. She holds a bachelor’s degree in technical journalism from Colorado State University with a cognate in geology. She has been in the news business since 1980 and with the Navajo Times since 2005, and is the author of “Exploring the Navajo Nation Chapter by Chapter.”

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