By William Croyle
Enquirer contributor

BURLINGTON - A black family has moved out of Boone County after finding a burned cross in their front yard one morning and their car windows smashed out the next.

"I felt hated and totally disrespected," said Fred Mahone, who moved to the Rosetta Drive home with his wife, 18-year-old stepdaughter and 16-year-old stepson in February.

"You expect your father to tell you stories about something like this - but it's never happened to me, and I never expected it to."

The FBI is investigating what happened at the home in the 6500 block of Rosetta Drive as potential civil rights violations.

The Boone County Sheriff's Department, citing the investigation, did not immediately release police reports.

Mahone said Monday that he was walking to his car about 8:30 a.m. July 2 when he noticed a 3-foot-tall charred cross under a tree in his yard.

"I asked myself, 'What is that? It can't be what I think it is,' " Mahone recalled.

He called the sheriff's department and filed a report. The next morning he found both windows on the driver's side of his car shattered.

He filed another report - and decided it was time to leave for the safety of his family.

"After they did the windows, we moved out two days later," Mahone said. "I was thinking, 'What's next? Are they going to get my kids?' "

Mahone and his family, who were renting the house, now live elsewhere in Northern Kentucky.

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Bill O'Leary confirmed that the bureau is investigating the reports with the help of the county sheriff's department. Neither he nor sheriff's spokesman Tom Scheben, who provided the police reports Monday, would divulge further information.

The working-class neighborhood off Rogers Lane near Burlington is mostly white, though neighbors said some black families live in a nearby apartment complex.

The Mahones lived in a modest split-level with a one-car garage surrounded by brick ranch and split-level homes that generally sell for about $97,000. A man who answered the phone number to rent the now-vacant home declined to comment.

Neighbor Clinton L. Allen, who lives across from the Mahones' former home, was sorry to hear what happened.

"I didn't know him, but I always waved to him and his wife and always said hi to his son and daughter when they were out playing," said Allen, who has lived across the street since 1997. "They never bothered anybody. I don't see any sense in what happened."

This is the first apparent hate crime that Jerome Bowles, president of the Northern Kentucky chapter of the NAACP, can recall in years in Boone County.

"It's unfortunate that they felt they had to move out of the area. It's sad that a family just wants to move into a neighborhood and is treated this way," Bowles said. "We hope as the population becomes more diverse in Boone County, this type of thing won't happen."

The county's population is primarily white. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 95.2 percent of the county residents were white, 2 percent Hispanic, 1.5 percent black and 1.3 percent Asian.

A 2002 Census update put the fast-growing county's population at 93,290.

County Judge-executive Gary Moore said he had never heard of a cross burning or anything like it in the county.

"It's shocking to hear," Moore said. "I am astounded that something like that would go on in 2004 in an area as progressive as Boone County."

In 1995, a white man was severely beaten in Union when he came to the aid of a black friend who was being attacked by a group of white men.

The victim, Rodney Lillard, suffered brain damage and died six years later.

No one was ever charged in the case, Bowles said, in part because witnesses were too afraid to testify.

In Covington in 1997, someone burned a cross on a black man's front yard and left behind white hats and sheets marked with "KKK" and swastikas.

Nationwide, there are about 30 reported cross burnings every year, said Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a Montgomery, Ala.-based, nonprofit organization that monitors hate groups.

A few years ago, there were about 50 a year, but the number has decreased as penalties have increased, Potok said. Some people are sentenced to as little as 30 days in state cases, but the trend has been to prosecute federally, where people are receiving more than 20 years.

He said this type of crime makes victims feel isolated unless they get support from the community.

"What often happens is neighbors of the victim will come together and defend the victim," Potok said. "They are offended so much they want to come out and say this isn't what our community is about."

Before moving to Burlington, the Mahones lived in Hebron in Boone County for two years without incident. His kids have no problems at school, Mahone said. Though he didn't know too many neighbors on Rosetta, those he did know were very nice, he said.

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Jim Hannah and Brenna R. Kelly contributed to this report.

E-mail williamcroyle@yahoo.com