A Brunswick High School graduate was arrested Thursday and charged in connection with racist graffiti that was found at his Maryland college, police said.
The Baltimore County Police Department said Fynn Ajani Arthur, 21, has been charged with two counts of malicious destruction of property. He was released Friday on personal recognizance, police said, and the prosecutor’s office will determine whether to charge him with a hate-related crime.
Arthur graduated from Brunswick in 2015 and is a public health major at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland. The school’s website lists him as a member of the lacrosse team.
School officials have released multiple statements about the graffiti, which included swastikas and a reference to the Ku Klux Klan, and the subsequent arrest. They don’t mention Arthur by name, but said the suspect had been removed and banned from campus, pending adjudication through Goucher College’s student conduct processes.
José Bowen, the college president, and Bryan Coker, the vice president and dean of students, released a joint statement Friday saying they hope the incidents will be prosecuted as hate crimes.
“We are disappointed that the suspect has not yet been charged with a hate crime, and we are encouraging the State’s Attorney Office to do so,” they wrote. “These acts of hate have consumed our community, and we feel strongly that the suspect should receive the strongest charges, which reflect the seriousness of these crimes.”
The college and the police department detailed two discoveries of racist graffiti in less than three weeks. The first incident was reported on Nov. 14. Early that day, a student found graffiti written in permanent black marker in a bathroom stall in a residence hall. It included a backward swastika, a racially motivated threat and the numbers of three rooms occupied by black male students, officials said. One of those students was Arthur.
All three students were interviewed at the time, police said, and they could not provide any information or motive for the graffiti.
The Baltimore Sun reported that more than 100 African-American students at the college participated in a protest in response to the graffiti.
The second incident occurred this week. At 2 a.m. Wednesday, a student discovered more graffiti in another bathroom stall in the same building. This time, the message included swastikas and “KKK,” as well as what appeared to be the last names of four black students. Again, Arthur was one of them.
Baltimore County police worked with Goucher College Public Safety and the FBI to investigate.
“The conclusion was that both incidents involved the same suspect, and evidence uncovered during yesterday’s investigation indicated that Arthur was that suspect,” a police statement said Friday. “He was located on campus and arrested around 6 p.m.”
Attempts to reach Arthur and his parents were not successful Friday night.
Megan Gray can be contacted at 791-6327 or at:
mgray@pressherald.com
Twitter: mainemegan
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