PROVO, Utah (ABC4 News) – Ten days ago two of Loy Brunson’s Donald Trump signs were vandalized, so was his house and two of his cars. So he put up 80 more signs. By Friday all but six of them had been stolen.
Loy Brunson woke up on the morning of October 20th to see the words “F*** Donald Trump,” and ‘#FeelTheBurn,” tagged on his Donald Trump signs and front door. His car, had “Ameri – KKK- A,” written on the windows.
“That’s a civil rights violation, that’s like a hate crime or worse to me,” said Brunson. “People need to understand that that’s very serious stuff. You don’t intimidate unlawfully, you don’t intimidate people to vote or not vote a certain way.”
Not backing down to the vandals he put up 80 more signs on his lawn and by Friday night someone had come by his house and stolen the majority of the signs including a few from neighbors living nearby.
“Everyone’s signs were just taken. They were all just ripped off — disappeared. All but 6 or 7 of mine were gone,” he added.
So, Brunson set up security cameras on his property a few days ago and around 1:00 p.m. Sunday he caught someone in the act.
“He looks like he’s about 6’2″ kinda tall,” he said as he watched the surveillance video.
Is this the person responsible for the vandalism that happened previously? That’s still not known but the person is seen trespassing and stealing his property.
In the video a man walks down the street and crosses the road towards Brunson’s house. He’s wearing a white t-shirt and tie and dark colored slacks. He stands close to a Donald Trump sign near the edge of Brunson’s house. He looks around, then glances down at his phone for quite sometime before turning and pulling the sign out of the yard. He neatly folds it and runs off.
“That’s pretty disappointing,” Brunson said as he watched the video.
But Brunson’s house wasn’t the only one targeted on Sunday. His neighbor four-blocks down had his giant Donald Trump sign spray painted with a big red ‘X.’
“They have no right to come in to my property and do damage to what I put up to my signs,” said Fernando Gomez. “And I expect liberties to be open to the public to anyone that wants to express their opinion.”
A Latino who proudly supports Trump he says he’ll allow any campaign from any party who asks to place campaign signs on his lawn.
“If they come and want to put a sign of the opposition, I don’t mind, it’s expression for the people to decide,” he said.
Coming from Mexico he says political corruption is well known in the country. He says during presidential elections there the winner is already decided long before the election is even over. And coming to the United States he says no one has the right to target and vandalize someone’s civil rights and freedom of expression on their own property.
“People are losing their grip on what the values of the freedoms that we have here in America are,” said Gomez.
Brunson has reported the incident to Provo Police and that told him they will be increasing surveillance in the area. They say the person or people responsible can face trespassing and criminal mischief charges.
The neighbors have also pulled $500 of their own money to offer to anyone with any information that leads to an arrest.
