Editor’s Note: An update to this story can be found here.

After months of enduring racism from a neighbor — some of it captured on video — a Midvale family’s plight has spread rapidly online and prompted action from city officials.

The videos began attracting attention at least four days ago, when a family member shared them on Instagram, documenting examples of the neighbor’s “racial harassment,” which has occurred “daily” since at least May, the mother wrote in a caption.

The post included clips of the neighbor, a white woman, driving by the family’s home in a car or walking by with her dog, shouting racial profanities toward the home including the N-word. Most clips were filmed outside with a surveillance camera, but one appears to have been filmed on a cellphone.

[Content warning: The videos shared online contain racial slurs. See the woman’s Instagram post here.]

The neighbor has racially harassed the family at their home “hundreds” of times since about 2020, Tyler Ayres, their attorney, said. The family first moved into the neighborhood off Union Park Avenue, just south of the Interstate 215 Belt Route, about four years ago.

“This is their first house. They saved up. They got into it. They’re doing great, and bam,” he said, “they get slapped upside the head with this.”

The harassment seemed to slow during the COVID-19 pandemic, but according to Ayres, the family says it ramped up beginning in May.

They have reported the situation to the Unified Police Department, which has jurisdiction over Midvale, but they feel police haven’t adequately responded, Ayres said, leaving them living in fear.

“We have dozens of case numbers, multiple trespassing and harassment orders and have filed for restraining and protective orders,” the mother wrote on Instagram. “We have been in contact with attorneys and the mental health crisis unit. We have contacted our HOA.”

The mother wrote that the woman has also “camped” in front of their house in her car at night, walked around their yard, messed with their vehicles and has chased her child with “sticks and a leaf blower.”

“I share this unfortunate situation publicly with hopes of change in behavior,” the mother wrote.

One reason why the family feels police haven’t adequately intervened, Ayres said, is that the family says police have contended that the neighbor’s speech is protected.

In June, the mother did report to police that the neighbor screamed at her and poked and pushed her stomach. The mother was pregnant at the time, and the mother had confronted the neighbor after the neighbor had first begun yelling at children playing outside the mother’s home, court records state.

Court records indicate the report and subsequent police intervention led Midvale Justice Court prosecutors to file a class B misdemeanor assault charge against the neighbor, for which she now has an active warrant. It is unclear why the charge wasn’t filed with a hate crime enhancement. The Salt Lake Tribune generally does not name defendants charged with misdemeanors.

Melody Cutler, a spokesperson with Unified Police Department, said Tuesday that officers have tried to make contact with the neighbor before, but she wouldn’t answer her door. Since she is accused of such low-level offenses, Cutler said, police couldn’t force entry into her home.

Even if officers had arrested the woman for her active warrants — for two misdemeanor cases, one of which is related to the alleged June assault, and two traffic-related offenses — Cutler said she likely wouldn’t be in jail long. She added that the family is not alone in reporting the neighbor’s behavior to police and that officers suspect she has underlying “mental health issues.”

Instead, Cutler said police have been seeking “a longterm solution,” such as getting her mental health treatment “so that she gets this under control.” Cutler said police met with the neighborhood’s homeowners association Tuesday morning.

Cutler denied accusations that officers were biased in investigating the mother’s allegations. She added that while subsequent social media posts highlighting the mother’s story have indicated that the neighbor once worked as a prosecutor, her office has found no evidence that she was or that she ever practiced law in Utah.

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill, whose office could prosecute such cases, said Tuesday that his office did not know about the mother’s allegations until Monday and had not screened them for hate crime charges. Salt Lake County prosecutors have since reached out to local law enforcement for more information about the case and plan to review their investigation.

“Officers and communities make these discretionary judgments all the time, and that’s fine, and often they’re absolutely right with that,” Gill said. “But what we’ve always tried to do is, we’ve tried to encourage them — if there’s any question whatsoever ... ‘Why don’t you just reach out to us, and we can tell you?’”

Gill declined to say whether or not he thought local law enforcement erred by not forwarding the case to his office for review.

“We want to be able to reserve our judgment when those materials are sent to us, so we can take a look at them. I don’t want to prejudge it,” Gill said, “but I can certainly say that, like everybody else who saw [the videos], it certainly gives me concern.”

Ayres said the family was scheduled to meet with Midvale city officials and police on Tuesday to discuss their allegations.

Midvale Mayor Marcus Stevenson said Monday night in a personal statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it was “hard to describe how disgusted I feel” after he learned about the “racist tirades” levied against the family.

He said he was in contact with other city officials and police and was working to reach the family.

“To be clear, racism has no place in our community,” Stevenson wrote. “Everyone should feel welcomed here, and our community’s actions should back that up.”

In a statement posted on Facebook, the city of Midvale said it condemned the filmed conduct and called it “disgusting.”

“While privacy rules keep us from sharing the details, please be assured that the appropriate authorities are involved and taking the situation seriously,” the statement read. “Our community takes great pride in our diversity; racism has no place in Midvale.”

Gill said that anyone who witnesses a hate crime should report it to police.

“Because that needs to be documented, because documentation leads to evidence, and hopefully,” he said, “to investigations.”