Reward increased to $5K for info regarding racial slur on Alpine construction sign

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

A $5,000 reward is offered for information on a racist sign in Alpine.
The electronic sign displayed a racial slur, alarming residents like Grace and her family.
Police cleared a local student and seek public help in the ongoing investigation.

ALPINE — Police have announced an increase to the reward being offered for information regarding the tampering of an electronic construction sign in Alpine that was changed to display racist messaging.

On Thursday, the Lone Peak Police Department announced that the reward had been increased to $5,000, up from the original offer of $1,000 that was announced on Monday.

The Lone Peak Police Department said vulgar wording with a racial slur was reported on Friday night by people who saw the sign while commuting through an area along Canyon Crest Road in the city.

Grace, an Alpine mother, was in the car with her three boys when they saw the offensive slur. The construction sign is intended to alert drivers of road closures in the area, but instead, she said, they saw a disturbing message about Black people.

Grace said what they witnessed was disheartening.

"Hurt, (confused), more shocked than anything," she said. "I think that's (because) we assumed Alpine was a safe city."

Grace, who didn't want to share her last name, thinks the message may have been directed at her family — but she'd like to believe that wasn't the case.

"We're the only people of color on that block," she said. "I don't want to believe that there's a huge chance that it is — considering that we are the very, very small demographics in the neighborhood."

The lighted message board displayed changing messages that appeared to attribute the racial slur to a "local high school athlete," police said. Police said they don't suspect that the student named in the message is involved.

"After a thorough interview, officers have determined that the individual in question was not involved in or responsible for the action related to this event," police said in a statement Monday.

As the investigation continues, the Lone Peak Police Department, in cooperation with the city of Alpine, is now offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or people responsible for changing the message board's content.

Those with information are asked to contact the Lone Peak Police Department at 801-756-9800.

Contributing: Dan Rascon

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.