tod evans
12-06-2013, 10:49 AM
Hate-crime teen whose house was spray painted with racially-charged graffiti may have been victimized by his own MOTHER
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2519101/Graffiti-hate-crime-teen-Isaac-Phillips-victimized-MOTHER-Andrea-Brazier.html
The family initially blamed fellow football players and complained their son is the victim of hazing by the school football team
The graffiti read: 'Knights don't need n*****s'
School authorities cancelled the rest of the season after no-one from the team came forward to admit to the hate crime
Mother Andrea Brazier vaguely alluded to her guilt while being questioned by officials over the graffiti
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/12/05/article-0-19E21D7600000578-20_634x548.jpg
Investigators probing the racist spray painting last month of the small-town Massachusetts home of an eighth-grade football player are now focusing on the 13-year-old boy's mother.
Andrea Brazier, mother of football player Isaac Phillips, is now being investigated as the sole suspect in a crime that shocked the town and nation when she blamed her son's teammates for spray painting racist graffiti all over the family's home.
‘Knights don’t need n*****s' was found spray painted on the side of their Lunenburg home. The school cancelled the remainder of the Blue Knights' season in response.
State and local officials have cleared the Lunenburg High School football team in the hate crime and are now focusing their efforts on Ms brazier, according to reports.
A Wednesday search of Ms Brazier and Mr Phillips' home turned up cans of spray paint and multiple round of live ammunition, according to affidavit cited by the Boston Herald.
It was all a lie: Ms Brazier still has this picture posted to her Facebook profile, but officials are pointing the finger at her
It was all a lie: Ms Brazier still has this picture posted to her Facebook profile, but officials are pointing the finger at her
Federal agents also interrogated the embattled mother, and stated in the affidavit she wanted the investigation to end because she had committed the crime.
'Andrea stated she had painted over the graffiti and that she wanted nothing further to do with the investigation,' the affidavit said.
Mr Brazier even appeared to halfheartedly admit her guilt under further questioning
'Andrea was told by (an) FBI agent that she wanted the investigation to stop because she was the one who spray painted the graffiti on her house and Andrea stated ‘OK,' thew affidavit continued.
She professed the innocence of both her son and husband Anthony Phillips before leaving the local police station in tears, said the affidavit. The teen's mother is white and his father is half black.
Ms Brazier and Anthony Phillips refused an offer from authorities to remove the graffiti, the affidavit continued before adding that aerosol cans were found burnt in an outdoor fire pit.
No arrest is imminent, according to the Boston Globe, but cops are now working to compare the graffiti to handwriting samples.
'Most of the leads that we have followed up throughout the investigation have led back toward the house,' an official told the Globe.
Locals talking to the Globe expressed shock and disbelief over the allegations.
'It’s pretty shocking, if it’s really his mom,' said sophomore basketball player Sam Sargent. 'If it’s true, she didn’t just put her son through a lot, she put this whole town through a lot.'
Cathy Hennessy, a 46-year-old mother of three, felt bad for Ms Brazier.
'This isn’t that kind of town,' she told the paper. 'If it was the mother, that’s just really sad.'
A friend of Isaac Phillips expressed a similar sentiment.
'I don’t see why she would do such a thing and have our school disgraced.'
The boy's parents moved to blame teammates they accused of repeatedly hazing their racially mixed son.
‘I don't really understand why someone would even do something like this,’ Phillips told WCVB-TV when news first broke of the awful graffiti. 'I have two younger brothers and another sister. This is our house, this is where we live. Eventually, they're going to see it.’
The teen's cleats have been thrown in the trash and the tires on his bicycle slashed in the past, she further detailed.
Players were given an opportunity to come forward with information about the graffiti incident during a team meeting in the days after the incident was first reported, none came forward and the season was cancelled.
The lack of an admission of guilt by any players make more sense in light of the most recent revelations.
Lunenburg Public Schools Superintendent Loxi Jo Calmes then announced that the remainder of the school's football season would be forfeited.
The decision prompted an angry reaction from some locals, including a former coach who launched a petition to get the remaining games reinstated - chief among them the annual Thanksgiving game.
‘I was so angry - this is so unfair to a lot of those kids,’ Matthew Roderick told Telegram.com.
‘I grew up here and mentored a lot of those kids. The whole team shouldn't be punished with no facts,' he stated. 'I was disgusted that innocent kids were being punished and the majority did not do anything.’
Venom from locals over the decision to cancel the rest of the football season was spewed not at the team, but at the family.
Isaac’s father Anthony Phillips, who owns a local construction company, has said he was listening to a local radio call-in about the incident when one of the callers blamed his family for causing all the problems.
‘We did nothing wrong - it has been turned around like we did something wrong and we're the victims,’ he said at the time
‘We didn't want any of this stuff.... Everything happened so fast,' he continued.
'We only expected a little bit of local attention after it happened. We're not vicious parents out to ruin the town. I'm hoping in the next few days someone steps forward.’
The graffiti, which is being investigated by the FBI as a hate crime, is just the latest accusation of racism that the team is facing. In two different games earlier this month, referees reported players using racial epithets against opposing players.
In the weeks prior to the graffiti incident, Anthony Phillips said he spoke to the coaches about his son's treatment but they told him that they doubted any players were involved.
A separate investigation into the team's conduct did find it guilty of hurling racial slurs at an opposing team, the Herald reported Thursday.
The season was not reinstated, several seniors lost the last two games of their last season of football.
'It's gross to think someone did this and just stood back and let us take the blame for this, senior Greg McGrath said. 'We took the fall.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2519101/Graffiti-hate-crime-teen-Isaac-Phillips-victimized-MOTHER-Andrea-Brazier.html
The family initially blamed fellow football players and complained their son is the victim of hazing by the school football team
The graffiti read: 'Knights don't need n*****s'
School authorities cancelled the rest of the season after no-one from the team came forward to admit to the hate crime
Mother Andrea Brazier vaguely alluded to her guilt while being questioned by officials over the graffiti
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/12/05/article-0-19E21D7600000578-20_634x548.jpg
Investigators probing the racist spray painting last month of the small-town Massachusetts home of an eighth-grade football player are now focusing on the 13-year-old boy's mother.
Andrea Brazier, mother of football player Isaac Phillips, is now being investigated as the sole suspect in a crime that shocked the town and nation when she blamed her son's teammates for spray painting racist graffiti all over the family's home.
‘Knights don’t need n*****s' was found spray painted on the side of their Lunenburg home. The school cancelled the remainder of the Blue Knights' season in response.
State and local officials have cleared the Lunenburg High School football team in the hate crime and are now focusing their efforts on Ms brazier, according to reports.
A Wednesday search of Ms Brazier and Mr Phillips' home turned up cans of spray paint and multiple round of live ammunition, according to affidavit cited by the Boston Herald.
It was all a lie: Ms Brazier still has this picture posted to her Facebook profile, but officials are pointing the finger at her
It was all a lie: Ms Brazier still has this picture posted to her Facebook profile, but officials are pointing the finger at her
Federal agents also interrogated the embattled mother, and stated in the affidavit she wanted the investigation to end because she had committed the crime.
'Andrea stated she had painted over the graffiti and that she wanted nothing further to do with the investigation,' the affidavit said.
Mr Brazier even appeared to halfheartedly admit her guilt under further questioning
'Andrea was told by (an) FBI agent that she wanted the investigation to stop because she was the one who spray painted the graffiti on her house and Andrea stated ‘OK,' thew affidavit continued.
She professed the innocence of both her son and husband Anthony Phillips before leaving the local police station in tears, said the affidavit. The teen's mother is white and his father is half black.
Ms Brazier and Anthony Phillips refused an offer from authorities to remove the graffiti, the affidavit continued before adding that aerosol cans were found burnt in an outdoor fire pit.
No arrest is imminent, according to the Boston Globe, but cops are now working to compare the graffiti to handwriting samples.
'Most of the leads that we have followed up throughout the investigation have led back toward the house,' an official told the Globe.
Locals talking to the Globe expressed shock and disbelief over the allegations.
'It’s pretty shocking, if it’s really his mom,' said sophomore basketball player Sam Sargent. 'If it’s true, she didn’t just put her son through a lot, she put this whole town through a lot.'
Cathy Hennessy, a 46-year-old mother of three, felt bad for Ms Brazier.
'This isn’t that kind of town,' she told the paper. 'If it was the mother, that’s just really sad.'
A friend of Isaac Phillips expressed a similar sentiment.
'I don’t see why she would do such a thing and have our school disgraced.'
The boy's parents moved to blame teammates they accused of repeatedly hazing their racially mixed son.
‘I don't really understand why someone would even do something like this,’ Phillips told WCVB-TV when news first broke of the awful graffiti. 'I have two younger brothers and another sister. This is our house, this is where we live. Eventually, they're going to see it.’
The teen's cleats have been thrown in the trash and the tires on his bicycle slashed in the past, she further detailed.
Players were given an opportunity to come forward with information about the graffiti incident during a team meeting in the days after the incident was first reported, none came forward and the season was cancelled.
The lack of an admission of guilt by any players make more sense in light of the most recent revelations.
Lunenburg Public Schools Superintendent Loxi Jo Calmes then announced that the remainder of the school's football season would be forfeited.
The decision prompted an angry reaction from some locals, including a former coach who launched a petition to get the remaining games reinstated - chief among them the annual Thanksgiving game.
‘I was so angry - this is so unfair to a lot of those kids,’ Matthew Roderick told Telegram.com.
‘I grew up here and mentored a lot of those kids. The whole team shouldn't be punished with no facts,' he stated. 'I was disgusted that innocent kids were being punished and the majority did not do anything.’
Venom from locals over the decision to cancel the rest of the football season was spewed not at the team, but at the family.
Isaac’s father Anthony Phillips, who owns a local construction company, has said he was listening to a local radio call-in about the incident when one of the callers blamed his family for causing all the problems.
‘We did nothing wrong - it has been turned around like we did something wrong and we're the victims,’ he said at the time
‘We didn't want any of this stuff.... Everything happened so fast,' he continued.
'We only expected a little bit of local attention after it happened. We're not vicious parents out to ruin the town. I'm hoping in the next few days someone steps forward.’
The graffiti, which is being investigated by the FBI as a hate crime, is just the latest accusation of racism that the team is facing. In two different games earlier this month, referees reported players using racial epithets against opposing players.
In the weeks prior to the graffiti incident, Anthony Phillips said he spoke to the coaches about his son's treatment but they told him that they doubted any players were involved.
A separate investigation into the team's conduct did find it guilty of hurling racial slurs at an opposing team, the Herald reported Thursday.
The season was not reinstated, several seniors lost the last two games of their last season of football.
'It's gross to think someone did this and just stood back and let us take the blame for this, senior Greg McGrath said. 'We took the fall.'