LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – On Thursday, October 6th, retired and wheelchair-bound 73-year-old Vietnam Veteran Edgar Russell and his 69-year-old wife, Sophia, woke up and got ready to pick up their grandchild from preschool and found that their SUV, minivan, and driveway had been spray painted with Antifa slogans.

The Russells, who are Trump supporters and Christians, found their property spray painted with the phrases “Antifa Targeting all Trump Nazi Scum,” “ANTIFA Revenge,” “GOP terrorist” and “Trump Lost.”

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Antifa refers to anti-fascists but they have proven to be anything but in news reports and videos. The group has been shown to be a considerably large participant in the riots and unrest that occurred in 2020 in many cities after the death of George Floyd.

In Lansing specifically, there are videos of the group posted by journalist and NYT bestselling author Andy Ngô, demonstrating against capitalism and criminal justice as well as going to a man’s home to protest on his sidewalk and lawn because he had a Trump flag and a “Back the Blue” sign.

 

 

Edgar Russell, who was shaken up after finding the graffiti, said this wasn’t the first time they were vandalized. It happened in 2020 when they had to file a police report after their flagpole was severed.

After being targeted for the second time, Sophia said, “We are Christian patriots, and we love the lord and we trust God. We don’t want to live in fear because we believe God wins.”

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Lansing police are investigating the vandalism while the couple works out how to proceed with the insurance company. Over the past two weeks, they’ve found many friends in their community, even Democrats, who have offered to help clean up, brought over cookies and flowers as well as someone who offered to buy them outdoor
motion sensor cameras with free installation.

Another community member, Brian Daniels, took to Facebook to call for unity and calm. He said on his Facebook page that he votes differently than the Russells but was not happy at all with what happened in his neighborhood which he calls the Eastside of the 1st Ward. He describes it as one of the most “diverse” neighborhoods in Lansing.

Daniels said about the incident, “We don’t have to agree, even on a fundamental level, on politics or social issues, as long as we respect one another…This behavior doesn’t just negatively mark property, it leaves a stain on all of us…We cannot pretend our community isn’t intertwined with people of varying beliefs. We are ALL Lansing
Citizens. Lansing is for everyone…This only increases division. It increases hatred…As a community, we have to come together and focus on our similarities, not our differences.”

The incident was made widely known on social media after Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon posted the photos on Facebook and Twitter and tweeted, “A retired couple in Lansing had their cars and property vandalized by the tolerant people of ANTIFA because the couple supports President Trump. Another example of the
radical left’s ‘fight like hell’ tactics, courtesy of Gretchen Whitmer.”

 

 

Most of the media reports of the incident use the word “claims” in their headlines as in “Dixon claims…” or “A Michigan couple claims…” possibly alluding to the fact that either Dixon or the couple aren’t telling the truth about the incident or it’s not really Antifa who did the vandalism.

Many anti-Dixon people appeared on Twitter after seeing Dixon’s post who outright accused Dixon, the couple or the GOP of setting it up including “Mueller, She Wrote” who has more than 300,000 followers. In tweeting about the elderly couple, the comment from the account said, “My entire paycheck that they did this to themselves.”

 

 

New York Times bestselling author and journalist Kurt Eichenwald, who has more than 500K Twitter followers, tweeted, “Remember the bomb planted by ‘Antifa’? Yah, it was a Trump supporter trying to set something off. And I’ll (bet) anything this ends up being the same thing.”

 

 

And perhaps surprisingly, a Vietnam Veteran himself named Joe Santarlasci tweeted to Dixon, “How long did it take your ‘biker gang’ to spray paint all of that. Did ANTIFA leave an address/phone number?” He also called the photos “The most staged crime scene I have ever seen.”