The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department is investigating what appeared to be a rope tied in the shape of a noose found hanging near the Sonoma Raceway on Saturday as a possible hate crime.
Steve Page, president and general manager of the auto racing track located at Sears Point, said an employee found the rope hanging from a tree behind a building used for health screenings.
“We had members of our team take it down,” Page said. “We looked at it. I mean, by appearances, it’s clearly in the shape of a noose.”
Nooses have long been a racist symbol associated with the lynching of Black people in the United States. Under California state law, it is a misdemeanor to hang a noose, “knowing it to be a symbol representing a threat to life.”
Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the scene after the raceway contacted them Monday morning.
Sheriff’s department officials confirmed to KQED that deputies are working with violent crimes detectives to investigate the rope as a possible hate crime.
Before Page called law enforcement Monday, he said, “We’re trying to learn more before we put law enforcement through a fire drill … If we think that there is an innocent explanation, then wasting law enforcement’s time on it is something that we don’t think serves anybody’s purpose.”
Page said the raceway was initially looking into the possibility that the thick piece of twine had been there for a long time.
But after a raceway tenant informed Page that while he remembered seeing the rope there before, it had not previously been tied into the shape of a noose, Page reached out to law enforcement.