OAK PARK, Ill. (CBS) — Vandals targeted Black Lives Matter signs at two Oak Park churches this weekend.
This comes days after a mural in the same near west suburb was defaced.
As CBS 2’s Steven Graves reported Sunday, the sign at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, at 545 S. East Ave. in Oak Park, had been fixed by late Sunday afternoon.
The sign reads, “Black Lives Matter to God and Us.”
Earlier Sunday, a cut mark was seen in the middle of the sign. Church members woke up Sunday morning to find it that way.
They originally thought it was wind damage, until they realized another church’s Black Lives Matter sign about a mile away at the First United Methodist Church Oak Park, 324 N. Oak Park Ave., also had a large slash in it.
St. Christopher’s Board Chairman Peter Walters, who fixed the sign Sunday, said he forgives the people who vandalized the sign.
“We decided not to inform the police department in Oak Park about this, but rather to simply inform the village board,” Walters said. “We’re not looking for punishment. We don’t want to be punitive about it. We are certainly not supportive of this sort of action.”
Walters thinks both the sign incidents are in relation to what people have called the defacing of a Black Lives Matter mural in Oak Park. Someone painted over the mural on Scoville Avenue to read “All lives matter.”
That happened Wednesday, about two weeks after the mural was painted. It matches the same timeline as to when St. Christopher’s Church originally put up the sign.
Oak Park Mayor Anan Abu-Taleb spoke out and condemned the vandalism of the mural. But he had no comment about the signs being defaced.
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