Mansfield: Vandals harass woman for her religion

Are the efforts of Bob Taft and the Ohio Highway Patrol putting this victim of hate at further risk?

Concrete wrapped in swastika thrown through window

MANSFIELD - Helen Avenue resident Ruth Schwan is considering investing in bulletproof glass.

Thursday night, just minutes before midnight, someone threw a piece of cement through her dining-room window. Wrapped around it was a piece of white paper with a swastika drawn on it.

Schwan, who is Jewish, said she doesn't come out of her house most of the time and doesn't bother anyone.

She said she's had problems in the neighborhood since she moved here in 1989.

"They burned crosses in my yard before, about 1993, and threw crap at the house and we have had verbal exchanges out here," she said. Someone also has painted swastikas on her fence a couple of times.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

Schwan said police have told her she must identify the culprits.

She has some video cameras on the house, but other than attempting to chase the bad guys, she doesn't know what else to do.

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A Star of David hangs in her kitchen window. "It's tradition to hang this when you move in for good luck, but I'm getting ready to take it down," she said.

"I took my (Israeli) flag down in the front of the house. That seemed like what all the problems were about," she said.

Schwan said she has lost count of the times she's called police over the years. This year she filed three reports with Mansfield police: May 10 for harassment and June 17 and Friday for criminal damaging, according to the Mansfield police records.

OFCC PAC Commentary:
No Ohio citizen deserves to be made a prisoner in their own home for fear of being attacked, especially not over their religious persuasion.

Not all women must choose to carry a concealed firearm to benefit from the reformation of Ohio's self-defense laws.

In 1966 the police in Orlando, Florida, responded to a rape epidemic by embarking on a highly publicized program to train 2,500 women in firearm use. The next year rape fell by 88 percent in Orlando (the only major city to experience a decrease that year); burglary fell by 25 percent. Not one of the 2,500 women actually ended up firing her weapon; the deterrent effect of the publicity sufficed." (Congressional Record, 90th Cong., 2d sess., January 30, 1968, p. 1496, n. 7) Five years later Orlando's rape rate was still 13 percent below the pre-program level, whereas the surrounding standard metropolitan area had suffered a 308 percent increase.

Every day that Ohio's Republican leadership in the Senate and Governor's office waits to pass concealed carry reform increases the defenseless victim list in our state, and forces otherwise law-abiding citizens into making a choice between facing felony arrest or being unable to defend themselves. This simply should not be.

Click here to read the full story in the Mansfield News Journal.

Click here to visit the online home of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.