Rogers Park Apartment Twice Sprayed With Homophobic Graffiti
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Vandals tagged a Rogers Park apartment building with homophobic graffiti twice since last week, and police are investigating the incidents as hate crimes.
Police said two women called police to report the anti-LGBTQ remark spray-painted under a rainbow flag displayed in a window of an apartment building on the 1400 block of West Arthur Avenue.
The first incident happened on the night of Sept. 9, and the second happened the night of Sept. 17.
City crews removed the homophobic graffiti both times.
Area North detectives were investigating the vandalism as a hate crime.
Police on Thursday afternoon did not yet know whether a suspect arrested in connection with another graffiti incident in Rogers Park might be linked to the anti-gay graffiti on Arthur Avenue.
At 12:09 a.m. Wednesday, police were called to the 6400 block of North Greenview Avenue for a call of criminal damage to property. The caller said a man was defacing properties on Greenview and Newgard avenues with paint, and officers found a man in the alley who had paint on his clothes and skin that matched the paint on the buildings, police said.
Kartik Kulkarni, 22, of the 6400 block of North Newgard Avenue, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of criminal defacement of property, police said. A Block Club Chicago report said the graffiti for which Kulkarni was accused read, "Trump 2020," "Sanders 2020," and "Warren 2020 Socialism," but police could not confirm that report Thursday afternoon.
Police said there was no confirmation as to whether Kulkarni was suspected in the anti-gay graffiti, but detectives were investigating.
