GREENSBURG (KDKA) – Whoever said “names will never hurt” was wrong.

Joshua Johnson, a single father, came home Wednesday afternoon and found racial slurs on the brick wall outside his Greensburg apartment on College Avenue.

“My initial reaction was I was frightened a little bit – a little bit afraid,” he said.

Scrawled in chalk had been the N-word as well as a swastika. On the sidewalk – a pentagram and the number “666.” Johnson believes his multi-cultural family might have prompted it.

“I’m like the only black person in the building basically,” he said. “Being a black man fathering three white boys and a black boy – a lot of mixed emotions from people.”

Greensburg police think it was one of Johnson’s neighbors and the charges could be more serious that vandalism or criminal mischief.

“Charges of ethnic intimidation, terroristic threats,” says Greensburg Police Chief Walter Lyons, “those kind of charges do come into play.”

Johnson would like to be a preacher and turned the other cheek. He doesn’t want to see anybody get into trouble.

“I would just ask them to come talk to me, have a conversation with me, sit down get to know me a little,” he said.

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