BARRIE, ONT. -- Police have made an arrest after several Indigenous Lives Matter signs were allegedly stolen and burned in Schomberg.
Local resident Greg Locke noticed the signs were missing from his front lawn and his neighbour's yard. He said he later found some of the signs destroyed while walking his dog.
"I walk my dog every morning through our fairgrounds, which is on the other side of the river here, and I came upon a spot that looked to be quite suspicious," said Locke. "It turned out to be a spot where at least two or three of the signs were burned with an accelerant, and they were all melted."
According to York Regional Police, the signs were taken overnight on Tuesday from yards on Main Street and Mill Dam Court.
"Disappointed," Locke said he was angry that "someone would be so hateful to be able to tell us that this doesn't matter. That they don't matter."
Investigators identified a suspect on Thursday and executed a search warrant at a house on Main Street. A 39-year-old King Township resident was taken into custody.
"This takes it from a mere theft of stealing signs or mischief to a hate crime," Locke said.
York Regional Police charged the accused with mischief and uttering threats and stated that the force does not "tolerate hate crime in any form."
