Man Captured on Video Tearing Out Chicago Family’s BLM Sign From Their Yard

An investigation is underway in Chicago after a man who appeared to be a city employee pulled a North Side family’s Black Lives Matter yard sign out of the ground and turned it face down.

CBS Chicago reports that the incident was captured on video by a security camera. It showed the man, who was wearing a hi-vis safety vest, taping a “no parking” sign to a tree before he walked onto the family’s property, pulled out their yard sign and carried on with his business.

The television station spoke to homeowner Dimitri Hepburn, who said the man in the video needs to be held accountable for his actions.

From CBS Chicago:

“It was a violation of my first amendment rights. You have signs up in my own yard,” Hepburn said. “It was a violation of our safety and privacy, I felt.”

Hepburn said the signs been up for months, and before this, he’s never encountered any problems.

“There is clear delineation between what is public property and what is our garden, our private property,” Hepburn said.

CBS Chicago reached out to the city’s water department–which had workers cleaning sewers in the area around the time of the incident–and received this statement in response:

This incident goes against our values as a City. The Chicago Department of Water Management does not tolerate any misconduct on the part of our employees. We are working on confirmation that this is a DWM employee and have referred the matter to the Office of the Inspector General.

Despite the fact that it is the year 2021, people still can’t seem to wrap their head around the very simple concept that Black lives do indeed matter without having a conniption. If you can’t walk by someone else’s property without tearing out a non-offensive sign they put up, or just can’t bear the idea of a BLM or Pride flag being in a school because the idea of supporting marginalized people is just too darn divisive, you’ve got some things to work on, friendo*.

*I use this loosely, because we would most likely not be friends.