Black doll found hanging from noose in California neighborhood, police say

A Black doll was found hanging on a noose in a California neighborhood and is being investigated and documented as a “hate incident,” police said.

The South Lake Tahoe Police Department received reports of a “disturbing doll” hanging from a power line in a neighborhood, police said in a statement.

“When officers arrived on scene, they located a black doll hanging with a string around its neck,” police said in a Tuesday news release. “With the assistance of Liberty Energy, the doll was quickly removed.”

The incident is being investigated, but there are no witnesses of leads, police said.

“Although it does not amount to an actual hate crime, we are still investigating and documenting it as a hate incident and want to identify the person or people involved,” the South Lake Tahoe Police Department said.

The noose in South Lake Tahoe is at least the third reported in California in the past week, the Los Angeles Times reported.

On Saturday morning, a makeshift noose was found hanging from a tree at the Sonoma Raceway, McClatchy News reported.

“Piece of twine, probably there for a while, but somebody had fashioned it into a shape you can reasonably interpret to be a noose,” Sonoma Raceway general manager Steve Page told NBC Bay Area.

A “noose-like rope” was also found in Santa Clarita on Monday, the LA Times reported.

“The rope itself appears to be a boating-type rope,” Lt. Ignacio Somoano with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department’s Santa Clarita Valley station told the news outlet.

A week earlier, nooses were found hanging from trees in downtown Oakland, McClatchy News reported.

“Reports that these were part of exercise equipment do not remove nor excuse their torturous and terrorizing effects,” Mayor Libby Schaaf wrote on Twitter. “We are all responsible for knowing the history and present day reality of lynchings, hate crimes and racial violence.”