ARLINGTON — One word disrupted the peace.
One word, scrawled in black spray paint, was all it took to turn Tim Dehnhoff’s dream home being built on a tree-lined country street into a crime scene, a place of hate.
The FBI and Arlington police are investigating the appearance of a racial slur and a swastika on the front of Dehnhoff’s house three weeks ago. Arlington’s assistant city administrator, Kristin Banfield, said all leads have been exhausted.
Since the graffiti appeared, Apollo Lewis, the mixed-race man who is supervising the construction project, has struggled to make sense of it.
So has Dehnhoff — and so has Arlington.
“Most of the community feels like I do — it’s intolerable,” said Mayor Margaret Larson, who was born in Arlington and has lived there most of her 70 years. “It just makes you furious, but until you know what you’re fighting, you can’t fight.”
Workers building the house discovered the graffiti on Sept. 24. They called the general contractor, Patrick Lewis, who is Apollo Lewis’ dad and the owner of the Marysville-based Palazzo Group. A few weeks earlier, construction supplies had been stolen from the secluded site. When workers called to report the graffiti to Patrick Lewis, they didn’t mention its racist nature.
The next day, when Apollo Lewis went to the site, the first thing he saw was one of the worst words you can say to a black man, written in 2-foot-tall letters on the home’s white exterior.
“When I saw it, there was one of those heart dropping feelings in (my) stomach,” said Lewis, 21. “The emotions ran through pretty quickly. At first I was angry … Then I was just sad for these people that they went out of their way to do that.”
Lewis, who is part black, said that once when he was in middle school he fought an older boy who called him the same racial slur. For the most part, though, he hasn’t seen the kind of blatant racism his grandparents experienced living in Oklahoma during the civil rights struggle.
Racism, for him, has come in subtler hues.
“There’s always been words tossed around — not from me, but from other people feeling it’s OK to say words like that,” he said. “They watch too much MTV Cribs.”
Racist behavior in Snohomish County has made headlines several times over the last few years.
In 2004, two white 16-year-old cousins pleaded guilty to burning a cross on a black pastor’s lawn in Arlington. Also that year, minority students at schools in Arlington and Monroe reported that other students had waved nooses to intimidate them.
In mid-September, backward swastikas and the words “I eat Jews” were painted on two cars belonging to a Mill Creek Jewish family. Early this month another swastika was painted on a different Mill Creek home.
Banfield said investigators don’t believe the Arlington and Mill Creek incidents are related.
To help confront harassment, intimidation, bullying, and prejudice, the Arlington School District developed a Respect program. The group brings diverse student leaders together to host a summit, plan Martin Luther King Jr. Day events and initiate dialog with their classmates.
News of the swastika and racial slur at Dehnhoff’s home broke the day after the Respect group kicked off its work for the school year.
“This incident drives home the need for a program such as Arlington Public Schools Respect program,” said Sarah Cofer, one of the program leaders. “The recent hate graffiti also makes us aware of the importance of spreading our message and what the students are doing to the greater community.”
Dehnhoff, a married father of two, lost most movement in his legs in a rappelling accident in 1998. He now makes a living as an inspirational speaker, talking about overcoming the challenges of his accident. He is white, but his wife is part American Indian. He was both furious and fearful when he first saw the graffiti.
“Initially it was like, ‘Man, if people will do that, what else will they do?’” said Dehnhoff, 47, sitting in the kitchen of his Marysville home. “Is our builder going to call us some day and say, ‘Someone burned your house to the ground?’”
Intent on catching the culprit and concerned that the police may not take what happened seriously, he spent a night in a sleeping bag at the construction site. He didn’t see anyone suspicious, but was heartened when officers dropped by three times that night to check on the home.
In the weeks since his house was vandalized, acquaintances, friends and parishioners at the Arlington Assembly of God church he attends have overwhelmed him with support, Denhoff said. Strangers, six people from Arlington he’d never met, called to apologize for the actions of others in their town.
In some ways, he said, the graffiti has been a blessing.
“It’s pushing this into people’s faces and making them think,” he said. “We want these people in the light where we can see them, not hiding in the shadow where they want to be.”
Patrick and Apollo Lewis have also seen good come from the bad. They believe the graffiti was aimed at them.
“It’s better to get it out and talk about it than to constantly let people get away with doing the small little things,” said Patrick Lewis, who is white.
When the graffiti first appeared, he feared for his son’s safety. Both father and son agreed it was best for Apollo not to work alone at Denhoff’s new home. He hasn’t since the incident.
The elder Lewis didn’t want his son interviewed by the media. He tried to keep his name out of news coverage. Nonetheless, word got around to family and friends. Activist groups and nonprofit organizations got in touch, offering help and information. A grandmother and uncles called Apollo Lewis to share advice and stories of racism they’d endured.
People in neighboring Marysville paid enough attention to news reports about the incident that they figured out Apollo Lewis must be the young man who had been targeted.
In the days that followed, Apollo Lewis said hundreds of people stopped him while he was working out at the Marysville YMCA or going about his daily routine. They offered sympathy and support.
Named after the Greek god of strength, Apollo Lewis said he felt he was ready to talk. He’s grateful that racism is not as rampant as it was for his grandparents’ generation, but this incident makes him worry for his 11/2 year-old son, Apollo Jr., and the baby his fiance is carrying.
“I thought about how times have changed a little bit in his favor since the attacks have happened less,” he said, thinking of his son. “But it’s something I’d never wish for him to see.”
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
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