Just days after members of the Beta Nu chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. repainted their plots, after vandals defaced them with red spray paint, the ladies of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. may soon be doing the same.
The AKAs arrived to campus Wednesday morning to find that their wall, which sits on the north side of the Gore Education Complex, had been vandalized with red and purple paint.
“It’s unfortunate that someone felt the need to do that,” said Natalie Holmes, president of the Beta Alpha chapter of AKA.
“I’m not sure what their reason is, but there are other ways to express yourself than to vandalize university property,” said Holmes, a 21-year-old senior from Hartford, Conn.
While Holmes found it difficult to put the incident into words, one person who could, was an eyewitness who saw the entire event unfold.
That witness, who is a journalism student, and asked not to be identified, said he noticed the paint at about 2:30 a.m. He said he saw two girls running toward a parked car and pulled up near them in an attempt to stop them.
“After I pulled my car in front of them, I had the lights brightly shining on them,” he explained. “I saw the two girls ducked down in the back seat.
The witness said the girls were accompanied by a driver and another girl in the passenger seat. We sat there about a minute or two, then they sped off.”
According to the witness, the two girls were wearing black hooded sweatshirts.
After the car drove off, the witness said he followed them to get the car’s tag number.
“After they sped off, I raced after them,” he said.
“We ran through stop signs, and while we were traveling down (Martin Luther King Boulevard), I reached for a pen and got their tag number.”
The witness said the vandals fled in a ’99 or 2000 silver Mitsubishi Galant bearing the license plate I59-GKH.
Because the battery on his cell phone was low at the time, the witness said he had to wait until the next day to talk to someone at the FAMU Police Department.
The witness said he talked to Sgt. Folsom, who said that he (Folsom) would have to talk to the administration to see if they wanted to file charges.
The vandalism came a day after the sorority introduced 54 new members in Lee Hall Tuesday night.
By Wednesday afternoon, several members of the organization had seen the damage firsthand. One of those members was 21-year-old accounting student Courtney Gant.
“I can’t even describe it in words,” said Gant, who is from Walterboro, S.C., while looking at the wall. “We just repainted that wall a couple of weeks ago, and it’s sad that people have to waste their time and sabotage somebody’s wall.”
The Office of Student Union and Activities could not comment on the vandalism because they were not sure of what happened.
“As of 5:32 (Wednesday), I have not been notified about (the vandalism),” said Saundra Inge, associate director of the OSUA.
Corey Scott, president of the Pan-Hellenic Council, which governs eight of the “Divine Nine” Greek organizations on campus, said the incident only sheds more negative light on FAMU, which is already struggling with loads of negative attention.
“I just think it’s a sad occurrence that it happened,” said Scott, a 22-year-old graduating senior from Columbia, Md.
“We have so much bad press on campus that it really reflects badly on Greek organizations.”
Scott said he does not believe any member of the Greek organizations on campus did the damage, and that it is the University’s decision whether to file charges if the vandals are caught.
“It’s something we’re going to talk to FAMU P.D. about,” Scott said.