A 47-year-old Fayetteville man was found guilty Wednesday of misdemeanor criminal mischief in the vandalism of a Harrison billboard last fall.
Chad Everett Watkins, previously of Harrison, pleaded no contest in connection to the Nov. 29 spray painting of a billboard on the the U.S. 62/65 bypass.
The billboard’s message was changed from “Anti-Racist is a Code Word for Anti-White” to “Anti-Racist is a Code Word for Love.”
Watkins’ trial was scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday in Harrison District Court, but he reached a plea agreement with City Attorney Van Younes, who prosecuted the case, before the trial began.
“He entered a no contest plea, and I found him guilty based on that plea,” Judge Fred Kirkpatrick said. “I really thought there would be a trial. … I just thought because of what was involved here there would be a hearing.”
Kirkpatrick said he ordered Watkins to pay $500 to the court. That included a $340 fine, $100 in court costs and $60 in fees. Also, the judge ordered Watkins to pay $769 in restitution to Harrison Sign Co.
Matt Campbell of Little Rock, Watkins’ attorney, said his client is now a full-time student at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
“A plea offer that didn’t include probation allows him to move on and not have this hanging over him for years,” Campbell said via email.
Watkins said he had no comment regarding the plea.
Harrison Mayor Jeff Crockett said he was also surprised to hear about the plea agreement.
“Wrong is wrong,” said Crockett, referring to the vandalism. “It should not have been done. It was somebody else’s property that shouldn’t have been damaged. I don’t agree with the message on the sign, but whether I agree with it or not, it’s not anybody’s right to deface it. From the beginning, I said restitution should be made, and that’s what happened. He paid restitution for the damages and also was fined.”
The billboard went up Oct. 15 and sparked aprotest and a local counter-campaign called “Love Your Neighbor” from the Harrison Community Task Force on Race Relations and the Rotary Club. The city has long fought a reputation for racial intolerance dating back to riots more than a century ago.
Nobody has taken responsibility for paying to display the billboard’s original message.
Claude West, who owns Harrison Sign Co., said a “young man” leased the billboard and said the message referred to the government. The man told West that anyone who complains about the government is called a “racist,” apparently referring to the fact that PresidentBarack Obama is black.
West said the man who leased the billboard has a right to free speech and has declined to identify him. The one-year lease on the 12-by-24-foot billboard costs $200 a month, West has said.
The damaged part of the billboard has been replaced.
Harrison has been dogged by image problems since race riots in 1905 and 1909 that drove all but one black person out of the city. The problem was exacerbated in the 1980s when Thom Robb, leader of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, moved to Zinc in rural Boone County and began using a Harrison post office box for the group’s mailing address.
In a news release sent out Tuesday by “The Knights Party,” Robb referred to Watkins’ “hateful conduct” in defacing the billboard.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 03/27/2014