AP: Black couple uses housing law to sue over slurs, threats

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In this photo taken Thursday, Aug. 20, 2015, Gregory Bonds and his wife Sophia stand in front of a home in Atlanta, they previously lived in as they talks to a reporter about problems they had with a neighbor that forced them to move. In a lawsuit Bonds says a white neighbor, Roy Turner Jr., began yelling threats and racial slurs the day they moved in in February 2012. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/c93af2889d0d48d79950d0a6e91238c5/black-couple-uses-housing-law-sue-over-slurs-threats

By KATE BRUMBACK
Sep. 5, 2015 5:40 AM EDT

GAINESVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Citing a sliver of civil rights-era legislation more commonly used as protection against discriminatory landlords, a black couple is suing their former neighbor and a north Georgia city they say failed to stop him from harassing them.

Gregory and Sophia Bonds say the slurs and threats began the day they moved into the brick ranch rental home in a well-kept neighborhood in Gainesville, northeast of Atlanta, back in February 2012.

Roy Turner Jr., the white neighbor who worked for the city's solid waste department, verbally assaulted them whenever he saw them outside, including sometimes while he was working, the couple contends. He also sometimes walked and made sounds like an ape when he saw them, the Bonds family asserts in a lawsuit filed last month against Turner and the city.

Turner told The Associated Press he wasn't aware of the lawsuit but that he never threatened anyone.

FULL story at link.