TOLEDO, Ohio — Racist graffiti is marring the walls of a barbershop on South McCord Road, and the owner faces a lengthy cleanup effort. The owner of Finishing Touch Hair Pros found his shop ransacked and the N-word spray painted on one of the walls along with the phrase "GET OUT."
"You always hear about it, but you never think it will happen to you. And by me experiencing it, it's like 'wow, it really did happen to me," the owner of Finishing Touch Hair Pros said.
According to a Lucas County Sheriff's Office report, the barbershop on South McCord was broken into and vandalized on sometime between Oct. 26 and Oct. 28.
The owner stated that he closed up shop at 5 p.m. on Oct. 26 and the shop was in good condition then. However, when he returned to the shop around 3 p.m. on Oct. 28, he noticed the back door was open.
"It's just sad that racism exists in this day and time and age and it's just sad to say that I don't think it's going anywhere. And we're not going anywhere either," he said.
When he went in his shop, he found the walls were painted with racial slurs in large black letters and one wall had the phrase "GET OUT" spray painted on it. The barbershop was ransacked, with many items knocked over. It was unclear if anything was immediately missing.
"I left that up and didn't fix it right away for a reason because I wanted people to see the reality of what's really going on in this world, so that's why I left it," the owner said.
A regular customer took a photo of the wall and posted it on Facebook Friday afternoon, causing it to go viral. His post led multiple people to come into the business for the first time to show some love to their neighbor.
Insurance is going to cover the repairs while police are still looking for the vandals. Since the post went viral, people in the community have offered to pick up paintbrushes themselves to cover the hate as a community.
"For a community to embrace you like that, and we never knew that the community accepted us like this, it means a lot. It just makes us feel good and it makes us feel welcome and it makes us feel a lot better," the owner said.
He has some advice for the vandals.
"Put down the spray paint cans and pick up a Bible, that's what you need to do," he said.
A criminal vandalism report has been filed and the incident remains under investigation.
