Officials say a man who drew racist graffiti on the campus of a small private college in Michigan is a 21-year-old black man.
The report: According to authorities, the suspect was interviewed by police on Apriil 6 and admitted he’d scrawled racist messages at Albion College.
- The college’s campus safety department offered up video evidence which confirmed the man’s story, MLive reported.
- A local news outlet first reported on the messages in early April.
- The graffiti included references to the Ku Klux Klan, a star of David with the number “666” written over it, and the phrase “Die N*ggers Please!.”
The response: Albion College’s Twitter account posted a thread in response to the investigation’s findings, confirming the perpetrator was a student.
- “We know the acts of racism that have occurred this week are not about one particular person or one particular incident,” the college said in a statement.
- “We know that there is a significant history of racial pain and trauma on campus and we are taking action to repair our community,” Albion College added. “We will change and heal together as a community, because we are committed to doing the work.”
- The school’s statement did not mention that the alleged perpetrator was a “person of color.”
Hate crime hoaxes: The incident at Albion is the latest in a series of high-profile hate crime hoaxes, the most notable of which involved black actor Jussie Smollett.
- Smollett’s claims in January of 2019 that he was attacked by homophobic and racist supporters of President Donald Trump initially elicited sympathy from the public and media.
- Major discrepancies in his account of the attack resulted in Smollett being charged in Feb. 2020 with a class 4 felony for filing a false police report.
- Last year, NASCAR mistook a garage door pull for a noose initially said to be targeting black driver Bubba Wallace – an incident which drew comparisons to Smollett’s case.
