Sudbury police eye online comments about plans to paint over new BIPOC mural

Greater Sudbury police are investigating hateful comments about a mural that was recently painted on Elgin Street.

The mural runs for a few blocks and in tall bright letters proclaims that Black and Indigenous lives matter. It was finished on Sunday by the local BIPOC committee.

Police chief Paul Pedersen says he woke up Tuesday morning to find notifications on social media that some people planned to paint over it this weekend. He says that would constitute a crime.

"The simplest offence is mischief and that is damage to property. That's the fine that covers most of the tagging and graffiti and damaging," he said.

"Of course we put the lens of hate-motivated crime on it as well and actually assigned one of our hate crime investigators to see if it did have its roots in hatred and racism."

Pedersen says there's no indication they have crossed the threshold for a hate motivated crime.

"It's actually a very, very high threshold in criminal law, but we will be documenting it, [and] it will be documented as hate-motivated and hurtful."

Pedersen says the investigation continues into those comments. He notes there are surveillance cameras in the area that keep watch.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.