Police investigating racist letter targeting West Seattle family



SEATTLE -- A West Seattle family is reeling after somebody left a nasty, racist letter on their doorstep Tuesday night.

The mother is white; her two young children are mixed race, and the letter writer's demands are severe.

Seattle Police said it is investigating the incident as a hate crime.

The letter rambles, criticizing the mixed-race family, the Black Lives Matter movement and also voices support for Donald Trump.

The mother, Stephanie Endres, said, “I had a bunch of bags in our hands and stuff and then I saw a piece of paper there. Like, what is that?”

Endres said she found the letter sitting on her front porch Tuesday night in her Pigeon Point neighborhood of West Seattle.

“I didn’t really get much sleep last night,” she said. “I just wanted to be near my kids.”

No one signed the printed sheet of paper that is filled with curse words and the N-word. The writer seemed to specifically target Stephanie’s two young black children.

“My kids are going to get what they deserve,” said Endres, reading from the letter.  “That doesn’t sit right for me.”

The incident comes as Seattle Police Department said the number of hate crimes is on the rise.

The Seattle Times said last month that 208 incidents of hate crimes were reported to SPD in 2015 – that’s up from 126 in the previous year.

“It’s really sad there’s at least one person in our neighborhood that feels this way about it,” said neighbor Stu Hennessey.

Hennessey said he heard about the racist letter on social media. He said he and his community are rallying behind Stephanie’s family.

“We’re trying to organize an effort to make them feel more welcome in our neighborhood,” he said.

The letter’s writer also criticized the Black Lives Matter movement, imploring that white lives matter instead.

The letter ends with the words ‘Go Trump’ but there is no other evidence the nasty note is politically motivated.

Stephanie plans to install surveillance cameras to catch the person in the act if it happens again.

“Feels like a personal threat to just my own personal kids so it makes it even worse,” she said.

Police said they placed the letter and other material into evidence and continue to investigate what happened. Investigators said this incident is categorized as malicious harassment – a felony in Washington state.