Just looks like a bunch of teens who had a spray paint can were just up to some property defacing mischief for the heck of it with no race bating intended. Maybe it was a late Halloween prank.
I suspect, based on how the story is worded and the single picture, that it was a group of wannabe gangsters out marking objects...and that the racial aspect, since it isn’t shown, is most likely something like “Wake Forest Niggaz” spray painted on a stop sign. Since that obviously isn’t a racial insult towards a protected group, but instead from one, they chose to show one of the other typical untalented artist/illiterate attempts at gang graffiti, and let the reader’s minds do the rest.
Either way, the fact that the headline and the picture are at such odds with each other makes it noteworthy.
If their ability to follow a CALENDAR is equal to their ability to PAINT GRAFFITI, then you might be correct.