'We Will Continue To Call Out Hateful Acts': Danvers Town Manager

DANVERS, MA —Danvers Town Manager Steve Bartha said the town will continue to inform residents of incidents involving hateful behavior and graffiti after school and town officials had said earlier in the week they would "no longer issue statement after statement every time a similar incident is discovered and/or is reported."

Officials said at the time there was a growing fear that the "constant attention created by doing so is simply encouraging more of the same" but Bartha clarified later in the week that does not mean the town or school district would attempt to conceal incidents from residents.

"Incidents like this will also continue to be shared with the public through appropriate channels, including a public-facing database that will allow the community and officials to track, quantify, see patterns and draw conclusions as we work collectively to design training, plan events and develop programs aimed to reduce and eliminate these kinds of incidents from happening in the first place," Bartha said. "We anticipate this database going live on the Town website in January."

The homophobic graffiti found at the Pickering Street softball field on Dec. 18 was the latest in a long series of incidents involving hateful or biased language, behavior and graffiti discovered across the town and the school district.

"The incident referenced in Monday's statement was the discovery of a homophobic message written in marker on an upper seat of the metal bleachers on Pickering Street," Bartha said. "The message itself was reprehensible. It is unclear whether it was recently written or just recently reported, but shortly after it was reported on Sunday, it was photographed, removed, and an investigation began.

"Incidents like this will continue to be handled with the urgency and delicacy they require — and appropriate actions will be pursued, whether punishing perpetrators, supporting victims, facilitating restorative justice, or some combination thereof."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)

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