White family with black foster child targeted in Pa. cross burning

White family with black foster child targeted in Pa. cross burning

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A white western Pennsylvania family that took in a black teenage foster child who plays for his high school football team said they were targeted by a wooden cross burned outside their home over the weekend after his team lost a playoff game. State police said Monday they don't know who burned the 6-foot-tall cross, which Joe and Candy Walbeck said they were shocked to find charred in their yard early Sunday. The Walbecks, who live in a predominantly white community an hour's drive east of Pittsburgh, took in 16-year-old Shaq Howard three years ago as a foster child because he was having problems with his family, and they now have legal guardianship. They said Shaq, a junior who plays inside linebacker and fullback for United High School, is well liked in the community and at the school. "Everybody accepts him. Well, apparently, there's somebody who don't," said Joe Walbeck, a former coal miner who's on disability. "I just can't believe there are still small-minded people out there like this." The Walbecks have taken in about 16 foster children over the last six years at their home in West Wheatfield Township, Indiana County. They've had a couple of biracial foster children, but Shaq is their first black child. They said no one in the community of about 2,300 residents has expressed a problem with Shaq, an honor roll student and a starter for his school team, which had a 9-2 record but lost a district playoff game Saturday night. Shaq said he was frustrated about the cross burning but wasn't going to mope over it. "I don't wish bad on no one, but something has to be done about the ignorance and brutality of their crime," he said. Shaq, Walbeck and United High School Lions coach Greg Mytrysak said they were unsure if Saturday's loss may have prompted the cross burning. _Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed._