Police are investigating a possible hate crime at Fred T. Foard High School that could land a student behind bars on felony charges.  School employees discovered a vulgar phrase splattered in red paint across the front entrance of the school Tuesday morning, police said.

It was written just left of the main school entrance in large letters sometime Monday night, Maj. Coy Reid with the Catawba County Sheriff’s Department said.

“This is not the way our students behave,” Dr. Tim Markley, superintendent of Catawba County Schools “It is unacceptable.”

He said the language used mandated a full investigation to determine whether it was intended as a hate crime.

“If they hadn’t used the N word, it would have just been vandalism,” Reid.

Markley said the school has launched its own full investigation in addition to the one the Sheriff’s Department is conducting.

Markley said school officials reviewed the video footage from the school’s cameras and were unable to identify the culprit.

“If a student is found, we would take the maximum possible punishment with the student,” Markley said.

That would mean expulsion from the school system, he said, which would be in addition to any criminal penalties given by the court system.

The crime is currently considered a misdemeanor. Reid said it would be escalated to a class A felony if evidence determines the graffiti was committed intentionally against a particular race, nationality, country of origin, skin color or religion, in accordance with the statute on hate crimes.  A class A felony is considered the most serious of crimes and would likely come with extensive jail time, Reid said.

Several students have already been questioned and police have one student whom they suspect is responsible for the graffiti, Reid said.  He said police need to talk with witnesses, some of which are off campus, before any further action is taken.

Markley said this is the first serious crime to take place at the school pertaining to defacement of school property.