*CNN’s Don Lemon recently spoke with a Black woman in Virginia who says her racist neighbor in a Salem Lakes cul de sac taunts her with racist recordings and monkey noises.
Jannique Martinez and her family moved into their home in Virginia Beach, Virginia, five years ago, a property Martinez describes as “everything I envisioned for my family and for raising my kids in a nice, quiet neighborhood,” she tells CNN. But her happy home was disrupted by a racist neighbor’s music, racial slurs, blinking lights and monkey sounds directed at the daily.
“I’m not going to lie, if I had any imagination it would be like this, we would have not bought this house. I would never sign up for this,” she said.
READ MORE: The Racist PowerPoint Presentation That Got a Sorority Suspended from Methodist University (Watch)
“We noticed a little erratic behavior like these blinking lights that are on a sensor. When my family or any other family leaves or returns to their homes, they all start to blink,” Martinez said. “When the sensors are activated, loud music begins to play. He switches the music based on the family that is activating the music.”
The neighbor also has the family under constant surveillance.
“We are all on surveillance 24/7 with cameras in every direction of his home,” she said.Most recently, Martinez said, the music switched to monkey sounds.”My husband parked his truck on the street in front of his house, which is city property, and instead of music, he started playing monkey noises,”
Martinez said when she complained to the police, her neighbor retaliated by playing recordings of racial slurs.
“Whenever we would step out of our house, the monkey noises would start,” explained Martinez. “And it’s so racist and it’s disgusting.”
“My son is terrified of him. Terrified, terrified,” Martinez said. “The N-word situation… they came to me and said, ‘Mom, what’s that?’ I didn’t subject my kids to that. I didn’t think they would ever have to learn what this means.”
The neighbor has allegedly targeted other families in the cul de sac with offensive songs that he plays while they’re outside.
“The minute I open my front door, those lights blink, or my music, or ‘my song’ comes on. Soon as they get to their driveway, it blinks, they have a specific song too,” Martinez said.
The Virginia Beach police reportedly responded to a total of nine complaints about the neighbor’s antics but there have not been any criminal charges filed against him.
The department released a statement about the issue Wednesday – see below:
— Virginia Beach PD (@VBPD) September 30, 2021
We Publish News 24/7. Don’t Miss A Story. Click HERE to SUBSCRIBE to Our Newsletter Now!
