SHAWNEE, Kansas, June 3 AP - The parents of star USsprinter Maurice Greene returned from the movies lastweekend to find racist graffiti spray-painted on a fenceoutside their suburban Kansas City home.
Jackie Greene said the letters KKK'' were sprayed inwhite on the fence, with white power’’ in black paint.
The vandalism took place sometime between 11 pmFriday, when a neighbour who drove by saw nothing on thefence, and shortly after midnight when the Greenesarrived home and saw it.
Shawnee police captain Ron Copeland said thespray-painting case was assigned to a detective to lookfor leads.
There were no witnesses and no indication as to whomay have been the suspects,'' he said. Jackie Greene and her husband Ernest, who are black,have lived in the predominantly white neighbourhood for5 1/2 years without any problems. They lived in neighbouring Kansas City when Maurice -former world record-holder in the 100 meters andyoungest of their four children - was growing up. We couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to dothat,’’ Jackie Greene said Thursday. ``We don’t have anyenemies that we knew of.’’
Maurice Greene is preparing for the US Olympic trials.On Monday, he ran a wind-aided 9.78 seconds to win the100 at the Payton Jordan US Open.