by Bryce Alderton

January 13, 2017

 

Parents of a Laguna Beach High School student said their son was the target of a hate crime two days after Christmas involving a watermelon that was tossed toward the family home and splattered on the concrete driveway.

“I know what throwing a watermelon at a person who is black is designed to connote,” the father, Maurice Possley, said in an interview with the Daily Pilot.

Possley, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who is a former reporter and editor with the Chicago Tribune, and his wife, Cathleen Falsani, also a journalist, are both white. They said their 17-year-old adopted son, Vasco, was targeted because he is black.

Laguna Beach police, who received the complaint, said they are investigating five juveniles with possible connections to the Dec. 27 incident.

 

Full article:

http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-me-0114-lb-hate-crime-investigation-20170113-story.html