White Custodian Allegedly Targets Black Students With Racist Graffiti

Last week, racist and otherwise disturbing graffiti was discovered at Francis Howell High School in St. Charles, Missouri, and, while school officials appeared to assume a student was responsible, the person who was arrested for it on Wednesday was the school’s custodian.

According to KMOV 4, Tyler Carter, the custodian in question, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with second-degree property damage and first-degree institutional vandalism, and harassment motivated by discrimination to frighten or disturb. On Sept. 23, Carter allegedly entered several bathrooms and foreign language classrooms and wrote on the walls. It’s unclear what the exact language was that he allegedly used in the vandalism, but, according to KRQE 13, it “included racial slurs and references to sexual violence.”

Carter is also accused of pouring chemicals over items in the custodial closets, causing property damage. Court documents state that Carter was the only person who had entered the vandalized classrooms and restrooms within the time the graffiti, which was reported by a student, appeared. The docs also confirm that his actions were caught on surveillance video, and that a handwriting sample from Carter shows “similar distinctive characteristics” to those found in the graffiti.

So, by all indications, a disgruntled white man whose job it is to keep the school clean decided that, instead, he would dirty up the school grounds with derogatory graffiti. But why?

Well, according to police, after Carter was arrested, he told officers he did what he did because he was “tired of cleaning graffiti left by students.” And, while getting back at student vandals by adding more vandalism is already a weird thing for a custodian to do, his answers as to who he targeted and why manage to make it much, much worse.

Carter reportedly told officers that “he targeted the African American community because he believed the graffiti had been left by individuals of that ethnicity,” according to the police report, which also noted that he said he had been bullied by Black kids when he was a child.

So, this man is claiming he was bullied by Black kids when he was a kid, and because of that, he decided, as a fully-grown adult, that he was going to take it out on Black kids of a whole new generation by targeting them with racist graffiti, which he also sought to blame them for creating.

That is some serious dedication to caucasity right there. Maybe next time, try therapy?

Anyway, after Carter’s arrest on Wednesday, Interim Superintendent Mark Delaney issued an apology to students and staff at Francis Howell, according to KRQE.

“I want to express my apologies for this incident and the effect it has had on students, fellow employees at Francis Howell High School, and the broader Francis Howell community,” Delaney wrote. “All students and staff deserve to feel safe and welcome at school. You have my commitment that we will continue our efforts to create safe and welcoming learning environments for all students.”

As of Wednesday evening, Carter was still in custody on a $50,000 bond.

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