Graffiti on Campaign Signs
According to the Naperville Police Department, on September 7 around 9:56 a.m., an NPD officer responded to the corner of Mill Street and Diehl Road for a report that a political campaign sign had been vandalized with graffiti.
A vulgar word was painted onto the sign for Republican Jeanne Ives, who is running for Illinois’ 6th Congressional District seat against Democratic incumbent Sean Casten.
According to police, about 50 minutes later they received a call once again regarding two additional signs at the intersection of Warrenville Road and Herrick Road that had the same vulgar word spray painted on both signs.
Ives said there have been incidents regarding her campaign signs from about a month ago that have been “stolen, cut in half, and defaced in other ways.”
“We knew this was an issue and addressed it back then,” said Ives. “But this took it to a whole new level to spray such vulgarity on a sign. It’s just awful. We don’t even say the word, everybody just says the ‘c’ word because it’s just an awful word.”
According to Ives, the first report of this was in Naperville. Yesterday one more sign was found to be vandalized in the same way in Glen Ellyn, then they discovered one more this morning in Wheaton.
Ives believes Casten and his supporters are responsible for the incident.
“I feel like Sean Casten is responsible for this occurring, he sets the tone for his campaign and his supporters follow suit,” said Ives.
Yesterday, Casten posted a tweet:
It has come to our attention that multiple candidates' campaign signs are being defaced with sexist, derogatory language.
This is completely inappropriate and beneath the dignity we must all demand from one another. This has no place in our campaign.
Lead with love.
— Team Sean Casten (@VoteCasten) September 7, 2020
The Naperville Police Department said they are investigating the incident.
Naperville News 17’s Aysha Ashley Househ reports.
