CLEVELAND — Around 3:30 in the morning, Michael Flatt is typically asleep at his home off Fidelity Avenue in Cleveland. But on Wednesday morning, he was outside fighting a fire, spraying his garbage bin with a garden hose in the hopes of stopping the flames that had climbed high enough to activate his doorbell camera.
“Panic was my first reaction, and then you can see, it’s really close to my car, and I was nervous something might be in the trash that maybe would explode and cause a larger explosion,” Flatt said.
By mid-morning Wednesday, all that was left of his garbage can was a charred heap, a black pile of debris seemingly melted into the tree lawn just feet from his home and parked car. But this isn’t the first time something on Flatt’s property was set on fire.
On July 21st, Flatt said the “Vote No On Issue 1” yard sign displayed in front of his home in a flower bed was set on fire. He posted new signs, only to find a few days later, they had been taken down and crumpled up.
On surveillance video taken from a neighbor’s home across the street, just before 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, a person walks towards Flatt’s garbage can, holding what Flatt believes are his and his neighbors’ yard signs. The person stops at the garbage can, and appears to light it on fire, with flames appearing as the person walks away.
“The idea of setting someone’s property on fire because you disagree with a political stance, it’s a frightening, I think, reality that we’re in right now,” Flatt said.
Flatt’s panic at the fire soon turned to rage. Flatt said he believes this situation with the signs is indicative of larger problems at play in society.
“Instead of engaging in any form of civil discourse, of a conversation about maybe how we can come to some understanding, and how we can live together in our society, in our neighborhood, in our city, in our country, instead of doing that, you retaliate with violence, and what is it that makes you think that you have that right to do that to other people?” he said, directed at the person responsible for lighting his signs on fire.
Flatt contacted both the fire and police departments in response to the incident.
"People feel emboldened, 'I don't have to take this up at the ballot box, I don't have to acknowledge the reality that elections and the will of the people should decide where we go as a society,” he said of the mindset he saw at play. “’I will violently attack those who oppose me. I will set their property on fire if they oppose me.’”
Along Fidelity Ave., other neighbors had their signs stolen and thrown into the street.
“[I] got up in the morning, saw that my sign was gone, all the signs along the whole street were gone,” said Jim DeFeo, who lives a few doors down.
The problem extended beyond their street. A few blocks away, further down West Boulevard, another homeowner had their yard sign burned, and could also see someone walking across their lawn to their sign, and sparking a fire. That homeowner tells 3News they are afraid of possible escalation.
Still farther away on West 58th Street, Sean Martin noticed his neighbor’s “Vote No On Issue 1” sign was gone. He looked back through his surveillance video and saw a man getting out of a white pick up truck in the middle of the night, and appearing to take the sign.
“You should be able to express your opinions without people intruding on your property, whether you think one way or the other,” Martin said. “It’s just – it’s not right.”
While these instances have alarmed neighbors, they haven’t been deterred. DeFeo and Flatt plan to put up more signs, and said they refuse to be silenced.
“Whatever you’re trying to do, it’s not working, it’s not stopping us, it’s not changing our minds,” DeFeo said. “All it’s doing is showing how important this issue is.”
These comes just days after a “Vote No On Issue 1” sign was burned at Mason’s Creamery in Ohio City. Officials from the Cleveland Division of Fire told 3News that the fire investigation unit is actively investigating that incident, and said the man seen getting out of a white pick up truck and setting that sign on fire outside the ice cream shop may be connected to other incidents. Flatt says he reached out to 3News after seeing our report on the Mason's Creamery incident.