A Fortuna resident noticed anti-homosexual words painted on several mailboxes on her street and filed a police report Thursday.

The derogatory words, “fag” and “gay,” made her so irate, it took her more than an hour to stop shaking, she said.

The Fortuna Police Department is treating the vandalism as a hate crime because the intent was likely to express hate, FPD Sgt. Jack Bernstein said. “It’s concerning for us to have something like this.”

The FPD is investigating whether the graffiti was committed by a misguided juvenile or someone with a deep hatred toward a particular group of people, he said. “You just never know what it could lead to.”

Bernstein described the vandalized area as a great neighborhood with hardly any criminal activity.

The resident who filed the report requested anonymity to protect the identity of her neighborhood, but said she believes for a couple of reasons that the crime was committed by juveniles.

She said she saw teenagers walking down her street Thursday afternoon and thought it was odd, as only adults live in the area.

Then she noticed around 4 p.m. that the paint on the mailboxes was still wet. And lastly, the word “gay” was spelled “ggay.”

Upon reporting the crime, the woman said she became aware that police were taking the crime more seriously than most graffiti. “From top to bottom, every single person in the FPD acted impressively,” she said, adding the department deserves five stars.

She was duly impressed with the neighborhood’s immediate reaction, she said. “It was a community effort, a community outrage and a police outrage.” Fortuna is not a town that will tolerate or encourage such behavior, she said.

Neighbors were tripping over each other to go wash the paint off the mailboxes, she said. “It was a grass fire that was not going to get started.”

Janice Echols has lived in Fortuna since she moved from the Bay Area two-and-a-half years ago. Being homosexual has never been an issue for her in Fortuna, she said.

In fact, she felt more resentment in the Bay Area because it was assumed she wanted special treatment, she said. “I’ve received nothing but support from this community, and feel like I’ve been treated as an individual.”

There are a couple of juvenile suspects in the case who will be interviewed by an FPD Youth Services Officer, the FPD stated.

Bernstein said that one of the suspects is about 13 years old and another about 15 years old.

If juveniles are responsible, Echols hopes their parents and schools take it seriously, she said. “Kids don’t understand the pain of their words.” They need to be taught tolerance for everyone, she said.

The FPD has been investigating a large amount of graffiti over the last few weeks, Bernstein said.

But there is no indication that this case is related to any prior graffiti vandalism because those crimes lack the specific intention of expressing hatred, he said.

There has been racist graffiti in Fortuna in the past, but Bernstein said he hasn’t seen this type of derogatory comments in years.

“It’s something we don’t see very often in Fortuna, or in Humboldt County in general,” he said.

There were no anti-homosexual hate crimes reported in Eureka during 2007, according to EPD Administrative Assistant Mary Kirby.

One hate crime that targeted sexual orientation was reported in Arcata in 2007. “These crimes are typically under-reported though,” said APD Capt. Tom Chapman. “I do not think it is a common crime in Arcata, but it certainly exists.”

District Attorney Paul Gallegos said crimes rarely come through his office that meet the threshold requirements for hate crime status. “I think there is little community acceptance of such intolerance and I personally have little either,” he said.

If it is determined that the intention of the vandals was to commit a hate crime and target someone specific, the case would be sent to the District Attorney’s Office for hate-crime charges, Bernstein said.

“Hopefully it’s something that we don’t have to see more of,” he said.