The FBI is investigating a white South Carolina couple for racial discrimination after they set a cross on fire in their yard last month facing toward their Black neighbors' home.
Federal civil rights investigators searched the white couple's home in Conway on Wednesday, according to FBI spokesperson Kevin Wheeler. The retired Black couple also recorded video of the cross being burned on Thanksgiving weekend and described days of repeated threats from their neighbors. The next week, Worden Evander Butler, 28, and Alexis Paige Hartnett, 27, were arrested on state charges of harassment and later released on bond.
The cross wasn’t on fire by the time local police officers arrived, but was still “facing and in full view of the victims’ home,” according to a Horry County Police Department report. Shawn and Monica Williams, the Black neighbors, told WMBF-TV that the burning cross was about 8 feet (2.4 meters) from their fence. They said they're reconsidering their decision to move to the neighborhood two years ago in light of this experience.
“So now, what are we to do? Still live next to a cross-burning racist who’s threatened to cause us bodily harm?” Monica Williams told the Myrtle Beach-area broadcaster.
One of the white defendants was heard on police body camera footage repeatedly using a racial slur toward the Black couple, according to the police report. Butler also shared the Black couple’s address on Facebook, and posted that he was “summoning the devil’s army” and “about to make them pay,” the report said. According to an arrest warrant, Hartnett also threatened to hurt the couple.
So how should this black couple deal with this?
Will the Law take care of this racist couple.
Federal civil rights investigators searched the white couple's home in Conway on Wednesday, according to FBI spokesperson Kevin Wheeler. The retired Black couple also recorded video of the cross being burned on Thanksgiving weekend and described days of repeated threats from their neighbors. The next week, Worden Evander Butler, 28, and Alexis Paige Hartnett, 27, were arrested on state charges of harassment and later released on bond.
The cross wasn’t on fire by the time local police officers arrived, but was still “facing and in full view of the victims’ home,” according to a Horry County Police Department report. Shawn and Monica Williams, the Black neighbors, told WMBF-TV that the burning cross was about 8 feet (2.4 meters) from their fence. They said they're reconsidering their decision to move to the neighborhood two years ago in light of this experience.
“So now, what are we to do? Still live next to a cross-burning racist who’s threatened to cause us bodily harm?” Monica Williams told the Myrtle Beach-area broadcaster.
One of the white defendants was heard on police body camera footage repeatedly using a racial slur toward the Black couple, according to the police report. Butler also shared the Black couple’s address on Facebook, and posted that he was “summoning the devil’s army” and “about to make them pay,” the report said. According to an arrest warrant, Hartnett also threatened to hurt the couple.
So how should this black couple deal with this?
Will the Law take care of this racist couple.
