HAMILTON — The FBI has joined a police investigation into a string of incidents in which residents have been the victims of racial slurs and vandalism.

        Police Chief Neil Ferdelman said police met Tuesday with FBI agent Terence F. Moran of the Middletown office to discuss the incidents in the North End neigh borhood that have occurred in recent weeks.

        “We'll have a joint investigation as we look through this,” Chief Ferdelman said.

        Orville Wilson said Mexican residents who live above his apartment in the 600 block of Heaton Street have decided to move to another part of town after their tires have been slashed several times.

        Authorities think the incidents involve teens and young adults. No arrests have been made.

        Mr. Wilson, who is white, said that when he tried to get the instigators to stop intimidating his neighbors, he became the target of racial slurs.

        He said they called him by a racial epithet, and “the next morning I woke up and they wrote it all over my front door. Then the brake lines on my wagon that night were cut,” said Mr. Wilson, 51, who has lived in Hamilton for 11 years.

        Hamilton Human Relations Director Vaughn Lewis said his office has documented the incidents.

        “I really want to send home the signal that this is not going to be tolerated,” Mr. Lewis said.

        “I think if we don't do something, it will continue and it will escalate ... to the point where someone can get killed. This just really concerns me.”

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