RENO, Nev. (AP) — A rural Nevada sheriff is investigating a possible hate crime after a Black man who was collecting signatures for a ballot measure recorded a confrontation with another man who he said directed a racial slur at him and said “they have a tree hanging” for people like him.
“I still shake every time I think about it,” Ricky Johnson told The Associated Press by phone Monday as he boarded a plane in northern Nevada back to his home in Houston, Texas.
Johnson posted part of the video of the Aug. 2 incident in Virginia City, Nevada, on social media, and the comments were quickly condemned by local and state authorities. Sponsors of the 10-day Hot August Nights classic car event being held at the time said they revoked the registrations of those identified in the video confronting Johnson.
Storey County Undersheriff Eric Kern said Monday that the office has completed interviews with Johnson and possible suspects and turned the case over to the district attorney for a decision on any charges.
“As far as a hate crime goes, it could be an element,” Kern told the AP. “There is an improvement that we are seeing.”
Johnson, who cannot be seen in the video he posted on TikTok, said a white man called him a racial epithet and made reference to the “hanging tree” before he began recording the encounter. In the recording, Johnson asks the man to repeat what he said.
A loud, profanity-filled argument ensued on both sides before a woman told Johnson he was on her property and he repeatedly asked her not to touch him as they took the conversation to the street, video shows .
Kern said Johnson provided the video to investigators. He said no one, whether suspect or victim, did not cooperate in the investigation.
In a statement over the weekend, the sheriff’s office said it does not tolerate racism, inequality or hate speech and wants to assure the public it is conducting a thorough investigation.
“But I want to say, in general, in Virginia City, that’s not something that happens here,” Kern said. “It’s a really sad thing, but it’s an isolated incident. people are getting a negative opinion. People are calling companies.
Storey County District Attorney Anne Langer did not respond to an emailed request for comment Monday. A spokeswoman for his office referred calls to County Manager Austin Osborne, who declined to comment on the status of any possible charges in an email to the AP but said the “abhorrent and inexcusable” behavior exhibited “by some individuals does not reflect our community.” and our values.”
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, who is black, offered his support Monday to the Storey County Sheriff’s Office in investigating what he said was a “hateful, racist incident” in one of Nevada’s most famous cities. Nevada.
Virginia City attracts tens of thousands of tourists who stroll its wood-plank sidewalks lined with bars and old-timey shops in the eastern Virginia Mountain Range, about 30 minutes from Reno.
It was the largest city in Nevada in the mid-1800s, when the discovery of the Comstock Lode brought thousands of silver miners there. Samuel Clemens started in the newspaper business and adopted his pseudonym, Mark Twain, there at the Territorial Enterprise.
Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo posted on social media saying he was concerned and disappointed by the incident.
“Racism and hate have no place in Nevada – this behavior must be condemned in the strongest possible terms,” he wrote on X.
The Virginia City Tourism Commission denounced the “hateful and racist” behavior as “abhorrent and inexcusable.”
Johnson was working for Advanced Micro Targeting Inc., a Texas-based company that provides election outreach and voter turnout services, to collect signatures for a proposed Nevada ballot initiative that seeks to limit the fees attorneys charge. of clients on a personal basis. injury cases.
Johnson said he has been the target of racial slurs before, but the incident in Virginia City was different.
“Being really in the middle of it and you have no way out. you feel surrounded by all these people. I felt closed off,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Ken Ritter contributed to this report from Las Vegas.
