Cops: Students Fill Chapel With Racist Graffiti, 'Trump'

Northwestern students accused of hate crime
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 14, 2016 7:00 PM CDT
Cops: Students Fill Chapel With Racist Graffiti, 'Trump'
Matthew Kafker, 18, left, and Anthony Morales, 19.   (Cook County Sheriff's Office)

Two Northwestern University freshmen were arrested Saturday for allegedly spray-painting offensive graffiti in the school chapel—including racist and homophobic messages and the word "Trump," NBC Chicago reports. Anthony Morales, 19, and Matthew Kafker, 18, took a tongue-lashing from Judge Peggy Chiampas when they appeared at a bond hearing in Chicago on Saturday in jeans and T-shirts. "These allegations are disgusting to me," she said, per the Chicago Tribune. "I don't know if any of you know how lucky you are to be at Northwestern University." When Morales' mother broke into tears, Chiampas added, "I don't mean to upset you. I mean to upset them."

Police, who saw surveillance video of the alleged incident, say Morales and Kafker spray-painted a slur and expletive against blacks, a swastika, an anti-gay term, several penises, and lines over photos of Muslims students. University chaplain Tim Stevens tells the New York Daily News that he discovered the graffiti, which has mostly been removed. "It's disturbing to think that someone who’s been in this space would be venting some sort of rage that way," he says. About the word "Trump," he adds, "I can’t speculate whatever it was inside them that needed to be expressed through that." The teens were charged with hate crime to a place of worship, institutional vandalism, and criminal damage to property, and held in lieu of $50,000 bail. (More hate crime stories.)

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