Neighbor Blasts Racial Slurs At Black VA Beach Family As Police Decline To Intervene

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA — Blinking lights, racial slurs and monkey sounds coming from a neighbor’s home have made a Virginia Beach family’s lives miserable. But the city police department told the family there is nothing they can do to stop the neighbor's actions.

Jannique Martinez, who is Black, said she and her husband fell in love with the house on a cul-de-sac in the Salem Lakes neighborhood in Virginia Beach when they bought it five years ago. But then their neighbor started harassing the family with blinking lights and loud music.

When the family alerted the police, Martinez told CNN that her neighbor has retaliated by playing racial slurs and monkey noises.

One of the recordings that blares outside from the neighbor's home, in the 2000 block of Jessamine Court in Virginia Beach, uses the N-word.

On Wednesday, the Virginia Beach Police Department said in a statement that it has responded to several calls for service over the past several months related to nuisance and loud music complaints on Jessamine Court.

“As appalling and offensive as the neighbors’ behaviors are, the city attorney and Virginia magistrates have separately determined that the actions reported thus far did not rise to a level that Virginia law defines as criminal behavior,” the police department said.

The Virginia Beach police said they have no authority to intervene in the neighbor's ongoing actions.

“We will closely monitor the situation, investigate complaints and, within the limits of the law, help this family with this most unpleasant situation,” the police said.

Other residents of the cul-de-sac also have called the police to complain about the loud noise coming from the neighbor's house.

Martinez told CNN that the harassment started about a year-and-a-half after she and her family moved in. When Martinez and her family would leave their house or pull into their driveway, it would set off sensors set up at the neighbor's house, causing loud music to play.

Afraid to provoke the neighbor, Martinez said she has reached out to him only once — when he was playing his music extremely loud on the first day of virtual school for her child in September 2020. The man refused to do the neighborly thing and turn down the music, she told CNN.

Along with the police, the courts have told Martinez there is nothing they can do to stop the loud noise and racial slurs coming from the neighbor's house.

Asked by CNN if she and her family are planning to move in response to the city of Virginia Beach's refusal to do anything, Martinez responded: "Absolutely not."