VIDEO: Love Your Neighbor Love Fest

A large gathering of Concord residents spent their lunch hour on Thompson Street on Aug. 9, .

Those neighbors are Batulo Mahamed, Salad Salad, and their children, who live on Thompson Street, just off South Street, in the South End, in a home that was targeted by as one activist described it, of an unknown individual in the community.

The graffiti is gone from the home – new siding was put up earlier this week – but the sting of the insulting comments remained. Which is why many in the community came out to sing, speak, and cheer, and let the Somalian refugee family that had been living in Concord for about eight years know that they were welcomed and loved in the city.

Gov. spoke to the family privately and addressed the crowd saying he was “appalled and disgusted” by the graffiti incident and called on the perpetrator to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“We should have zero tolerance when it comes to this sort of hate crime,” he said.

Concord Police Chief called the act “cowardice” and said the Love Your Neighbor event showed that the community was “unified in denouncing the acts.” Concord is a wonderful city, he said, and the incident didn’t reflect the views of the majority of people living in Concord

“Each and every citizen of this city deserves to live their lives free of fear and intimidation,” he said. “Any crime against a citizen is a crime against the community at-large.”

Mahamed and Salad both said they were happy that members of the community had come out to support the family. Salad, through a translator, noted that he was getting calls from all over the country and he was humbled by all the positive comments.

According to Duval, and the department is hoping that residents who may have seen something on the morning of Aug. 5, will come forward with information. Officers are going to be canvassing the neighborhood again, not unlike they did .