Mixed-Race Family Files Suit Claiming Neighbors Committed Hate Crimes To Drive Them From Their Home, Then Torched Vacated Residence

In Mason City, Iowa, the Globe Gazette reports:

• A mixed-race Mason City family has filed a hate crimes lawsuit against a neighborhood association and a man given a suspended prison sentence for setting fire to their former home.
  
  The lawsuit alleges Roger Kuck and other members of the Ecological Society of Willowbrook committed hate crimes against the family while they were still living in the home, which was vacant and in foreclosure at the time of the fire in October 2013.
  
  Also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, filed last week in Cerro Gordo County District Court, is E. Howard Sonksen, past president of the Ecological Society of Willowbrook.
  
  Linda L. Turnure, Tiffany L. Coleman, Devon D. Thomas and Meggan J. Alexander filed the lawsuit. Linda and Terry Turnure owned the home at 112 Brook Terrace, but Terry Turnure is not named as a plaintiff.
  
  
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  While living at the Brook Terrace residence, the Turnure family consisted of a Korean daughter; a Korean sister-in-law, niece and nephew; an African-American son-in-law; two grandchildren who are part African-American; and a Hispanic granddaughter; according to the lawsuit.
  
  They claim beginning in the late 1990s members of the Ecological Society of Willowbrook used racial slurs against them and threatened to kill them and their pets.
  
  After moving into the neighborhood in 2004, the lawsuit claims Kuck began acts of terrorism and hate crimes against the family.
  
  Those alleged actions included cutting down healthy trees on the common property directly in front of the family's house, saying he did so because the family needed to leave the neighborhood. While making this comment, Kuck was carrying a running chainsaw and came toward a member of the family "in a threatening manner," according to the lawsuit.
  
  Kuck also allegedly vandalized and shot at vehicles belonging to the family; set fire to a large canvas tree swing in the front yard; made threatening phone calls to the house; and sprayed a heavy dose of chemicals on the lawn.
  
  
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  The family also claims they eventually moved out of the home and to another part of town due to the harassment, but even after they left Kuck continued to vandalize the home and finally set fire to it on Oct. 30, 2013.
  
  The family is seeking an unspecified amount of damages in the lawsuit for alleged negligence, assault, intentional infliction of personal distress, libel or slander and malicious prosecution.
  
  Kuck entered an Alford plea to second-degree arson, a Class C felony, and was given a 10-year suspended prison sentence and put on probation, according to Cerro Gordo County District Court records. An Alford plea is a legal arrangement in which the defendant doesn't admit to the crime but acknowledges prosecutors can likely prove the charge.
  
  The court determined since the home was in foreclosure at the time of the fire, the only restitution Kuck owed the family was $350 for Terry Turnure's personal property that was damaged in the blaze. Kuck could not be reached for comment.
  
  District court records indicate Kuck was charged with third-degree criminal mischief in July 2010 for allegedly breaking two windows of a van belonging to David Alexander, the Turnures' son-in-law, while it was parked in the driveway of their home. However, Magistrate Patrick Byrne dropped the charges, citing lack of probable cause. [...]

For more, see Mason City family files suit, claims they were victims of hate crimes.