CHANDLER - They were only in their home for a few days when members of a Valley family say they got much less than a warm welcome from their neighbors.
They say they were the target of a vicious hate crime. The family just moved into a new Chandler home from a different neighborhood in Chandler. They hoped to make friends but instead they got a nasty note on their garbage asking them to leave.
It as a note calling Breanna Lothlen's family the "N" word telling them they are not welcome. The note also says, "Go back to Africa and calls President Obama the 'N" word. The note also tells the Lothlen’s to take him with them and leave.
Breanna Lothlen tells 3TV, "Um, people are pretty ignorant, very ignorant." Her family just moved to their Chandler home on Saturday and found the note taped to the garage on Tuesday morning.
Breanna says, "For us to just move in and not know anybody, there's no type of support or nobody to watch, you don't know who to trust, I guess this was their way of welcoming us here, saying welcome."
Jerett Lothlen, Breanna’s grandmother, says, "I thought it was very funny because I didn't think people live in the world like this anymore."
Jerett says she has not seen racism like this since the 1960s. She says, "All I'm trying to do is have a place for me and these grandkids to raise them because their mom is dead and gone and I've got custody of them and that's all we're trying to do is live."
The family was scared to show the children's faces on camera because the person responsible for the racist letter could take it a step further.
As for the person who left the note, Breanna says, "I'm praying for them, mentally to be helped because not even medicine can cure that."
The family plans to meet with police Tuesday night. Investigators will then have to figure out if the letter is considered threatening.
