The Brookhaven Police Department is investigating a string ofvandalism that marked up street signs, roadways and a tombstone inRose Hill Cemetery sometime before sunrise Tuesday.

That morning, area residents and Brookhaven Cemetery Departmentemployees discovered at least nine pieces of red, spray-paintedgraffiti that stretched from the intersection of East Cherokee andWashington streets through the cemetery and into the driveway of aprivate residence on East Congress Street.

The illegal illustrations were composed of a handful of numbers andsymbols and a short, seemingly threatening phrase. The paintedmarks included the acronym “SHG” and the phrase “Skull Head,” andthe number “900” appeared often behind the acronym. The largestsingle piece of graffiti at the intersection includedcryptic-resembling symbols, and several spaces throughout the areawere also marked with a phrase that could be a threat to a localjuvenile.

Cemetery department worker Dontray Williams said he and hisassociates discovered the vandalized tombstone around 9 a.m.Tuesday when they began routine cemetery maintenance. The graffitialso appeared on signs at the entrance to the cemetery, on the mainnorth/south path leading through the cemetery and on the side of anoak tree within the burial grounds.

“People paid good money for stuff like this,” Williams said as heinspected the defaced tombstone. “And I don’t know how we’re goingto clean this up. If we try to sandblast this off it willdefinitely take chunks out of it.”

Cemetery department worker Oren Witherspoon said he searched for anempty spray paint can in the cemetery to present to law enforcementas evidence, but his and others’ efforts were unsuccessful.Witherspoon said this is the first time in his three years with thecemetery department that he has had a graveyard vandalized.

Brookhaven Police Chief Pap Henderson said such graffiti was notcommon in the city, and the police department in the early stagesof an investigation.

“There’s some things we’re checking on that I’m not at liberty totalk about right now, but we’re investigating,” the chief said.”It’s there, and we’re checking it out.”

Despite the nature of the graffiti, Henderson said the vandalismdid not appear to be gang related. Residents who live near thecemetery disagree, saying that area-specific gangs are commonplacein Brookhaven.

Witnesses who were burning the midnight oil Tuesday morning, suchas retired Brookhaven Fire Department Assistant Chief Moses Bell,claim to have seen a group of approximately eight males, similarlydressed, walking along the edge of Rose Hill Cemetery and downnearby Independence Street.

Lastangela Thomas, whose driveway was the only private property tobe vandalized, said she arrived home from work at approximately12:30 a.m. and found the graffiti in her driveway around 8 a.m. Theincident occurred while she was asleep in her home, she said.

“When I woke up, this is what I saw,” Thomas said. “It’sdisgraceful. It’s one thing to put it on someone’s yard, but to goin the graveyard?”

Thomas said she would have her driveway sandblasted, install amotion light on the front of her home and keep a close eye out thefront window in the coming nights.