Students arriving for the first day of classes at FlexTech High School, 7707 Conference Center Drive in Genoa Township, were greeted with a series of hateful messages spray painted onto the parking lot and school structures, as well as other instances of malicious damage.
Deputies from the Livingston County Sheriff’s Department responded at about 7 a.m. today to the school on a destruction of property and arson complaint. According to a release from the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office, school employees reported to work at about 4:15 a.m. and found multiple instances of damage from spray paint on the parking lot and school structures, as well as other property destruction.
U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin said she had talked with Steve Hope, the new executive director of FlexTech, and offered her support.
“This is not how our students should be starting a new school year,” Slotkin said in a release. “This sort of hateful rhetoric has become all too common and now it’s spray painted across a local school parking lot.”
Slotkin said she is urging local authorities to take the incident seriously and “send a strong signal that this hateful vandalism has no place in our communities.”
Hope told WXYZ.com that he will be sharing security footage with the Livingston County Sheriff’s Department.
“We’d like to know why,” Hope said. “Why would you do this on the first day? What’s in your mind? What’s in your heart?”
The incident remains open and under investigation. Anyone with information regarding the incident is asked to contact the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office at (517) 546-2440.
