Public supports family in cross-burning case

Tips are flowing in from the public about a cross-burning this week in a small community in Hants County, RCMP say.

Early Sunday morning, Shayne Howe and his family looked out to find a two-metre high cross, with a hanging noose, burning on their front lawn of their home in Poplar Grove, just outside of the town of Windsor, N.S. Someone also shouted racial slurs.

Police suspect at least two people were involved, and they're urging anyone with information to come forward.

RCMP Cpl. Craig Smith said police have received a number of tips despite the reticence of people in small communities to speak out.

"We've received a number of different phone calls and tips from people, and we thank the public for that. And, you know, in times like this, there is also a reluctance from the community — especially small tight-knit communities — there's not always a willingness to come forward and say who you are," Smith said.

"You want the anonymity, so one of the things I'd like to encourage the public to utilize Crime Stoppers. It doesn't matter how big or how small, one piece of information, in some cases, can be monumental to an investigation."

Howe is the only black person in the community. He and his partner, Michelle Lyon, who is white, and their children have been receiving support from neighbours and strangers alike.

On Monday, Lyon said the family was terrorized by the act.

"We were terrified, just terrified. We didn't know if they were still around the house, we didn't know if they were coming back, we didn't know why this had happened. We had no idea," she said.

Facebook campaign

More than 1,900 people joined a Facebook site set up in support of the family, with expressions of anger that the family is being terrorized.

"Everyone's behind us, and it's good," Howe said Tuesday. "Just to have this much support for something like this, it's just unbelievable."

Redge Lyon said his 11-year-old grandson saw the burning cross and is very upset.

"I went and talked to him and he was upset and he didn't know if he was going to go home or not," Redge Lyon said.

Neighbour Loralee Armstrong said she totally disagreed with what happened.

"I'm all for the couple," she said.

Tommy Gun's Speakeasy Lounge in Windsor showed its support by sending the family some comfort food.

"We would hate to see that even one individual feels that they're not welcome in the community because of race," restaurant owner Richard Cole said.

Howe said all the support is making his family feel safer, but they're still thinking about moving out of the community where they have lived for six years.

The Canadian Jewish Congress and the Atlantic Jewish Council expressed outrage over the attack on the family in a news release Tuesday.

"We join all right-thinking Canadians in condemning this outrageous attack. The racial slurs are reprehensible in themselves and have no place in the inclusive and multicultural society of today's Nova Scotia and Canada," Mark J. Freiman, congress president, said in the release.

"The cross-burning goes beyond the merely reprehensible. As the calling card of the racist Ku Klux Klan in its terrorist campaign of violence and intimidation of African-Americans, a burning cross is the embodiment of hate and malevolence that in our view represents prima facie a hate crime of the most serious magnitude."

Jon Goldberg, executive director of the Atlantic Jewish Council, called on the RCMP to investigate the incident as a hate crime.