Hate crime investigators looking into defacing of Sudbury Pride mural

One of the artists behind the progressive Pride mural that now adorns Minto Street in downtown Sudbury says he was disappointed to see it had been vandalized on Tuesday.

Police are treating the defacement of a progressive Pride mural in Sudbury as a hate crime. (Ian Campbell/CTV News Northern Ontario)

Tarun Godara was on hand with other artists and members of the city to paint the flag. Godara says it took roughly 4-5 hours to complete.

"It was a bit disappointing, I wasn't necessarily surprised with how the mural was defaced. Once the mural was painted and posted on social media, we received a lot of hate towards it. It was kind of sad to see how many people are still bigots and they stand against queer rights, it's not a difficult subject to accept," said Godara upon learning that the police were treating it as a hate crime.

"That is amazing, there needs to be a precedent set for the idea that if you're going to commit a crime, there will be consequences. This is just the mural right now, it scares me that it took one person with enough hate to do something like this, another person could go and attack and a queer person next so they need to know if they're going to commit a crime, they're not going to get away with it."

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Greater Sudbury Police say they have assigned a hate crimes investigator within the Criminal Investigations Division to look into the matter.

They also say add officers will be working with the city of Greater Sudbury staff to obtain and review video surveillance footage captured in the area in hopes of determining who was responsible.

It was the city who filed the complaint earlier in the day.

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Mayor Paul Lefebvre who also took part in painting the project wrote last month at the time on his Facebook page that the city is stronger in diversity and that everyone belongs here.

"There is no place for hatred, intolerance, violence or discrimination in Greater Sudbury," he wrote.

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Anyone with information is asked to contact police or Crime Stoppers.