City of the Hills

OPD investigating graffiti at Neahwa Park

The Oneonta Police Department is investigating hateful graffiti in Neahwa Park that read “Black Lives Splatter” and “White Lives Matter.”
“It’s hateful, it’s sad and it’s repulsive,” Mayor Gary Herzig said. “We need to all do what we can to express that we don’t tolerate that here. That type of hateful graffiti is not common in Oneonta. That said, no community is immune to it. There are hateful people in the world and we as a community need to do our part in communicating that we don’t tolerate that here.”
Herzig said he was assured by Acting Police Chief Chris Witzenberg that the city would “prosecute them to the greatest extent that we can.”
Witzenberg said graffiti in general was common around this time of year, when schools are being let out. “It’s certainly provocative and that was the intent,” Witzenberg said.
The graffiti was not visible from the highway. It was painted over during the weekend.