Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

New York Giants Player’s Home Hit by Swastikas and Racist Graffiti

An National Football League player’s northern New Jersey home was vandalized with a swastika and other racist taunts scrawled on the inside walls during a break-in this week, according to police and photos that the player posted online.

The break-in happened on Tuesday night while Nikita Whitlock, a fullback with the New York Giants, and his family were not at home, police in the borough of Moonachie said.

Photos that Whitlock posted on Instagram showed a broken window, a swastika and a racial epithet for black Americans.

“Racism is real and instead of close to home this time they came inside,” Whitlock wrote on the photo-sharing service. “My family is safe but we are saddened by the hate.”

Whitlock could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.

Moonachie police are investigating the vandalism as a bias incident, or hate crime, Sgt. Richard Behrens said. The borough is about 3 miles (5 km) north of the MetLife Stadium, in East Rutherford, New Jersey, the New York City suburb where the Giants play their home games.

“We’re exploring all avenues right now,” Behrens said.

Video of the graffiti from a local CBS affiliate showed other taunts including “KKK,” “Go back to Africa,” and “Trump.”

The number of hate and bias incidents reported across the United States spiked in the days after Republican Donald Trump’s presidential election victory, according to a report released last month by a civil rights advocacy group.

The incidents have included numerous cases of people threatening apparent immigrants with deportation and vandalism deriding black Americans, many of which cited Trump’s victory.

Since his victory, Trump has said he rejects acts of violence or harassment, and disavowed the support of white nationalist groups.—Reuters

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.