The city of Oakland, Calif., has launched a hate crime investigation after nooses were found hanging from trees around a city lake, according to a statement from the Mayor Libby Schaaf.
Reports that the nooses at Lake Merritt could be part of an exercise routine or equipment were discounted and did not "remove nor excuse their tortuous and terrorizing effects," she wrote in her news statement. The nooses, found Tuesday morning, have since been removed.
"Symbols of racial violence have no place in Oakland and will not be tolerated," Schaaf said in her statement.
Blake Simons, an Oakland resident and co-host of the "Hella Black" podcast, discounted speculation that the nooses were exercise equipment.
"People don't exercise like that," he said.
"The rope was hella high up in the tree," he said, noting that there were many.
He said Merritt Lake is a place where black residents hang out and congregate, and this incident represents just one more act of racial aggression and "white supremacist terror" in a spate of recent, high-profile occurrences in the area.
In 2018, a white woman, later dubbed "BBQ Becky" on social media, called the police on two black men grilling by the lake. That same year, there was "Jogger Joe," a white man who paused during his run to dismantle and destroy a homeless man's shelter.
Simons said he is not satisfied with the mayor's response.
"This happened yesterday morning," he said. "And she's sending out a statement only now?"
The Oakland Police Department said it would issue a statement soon.
The discovery of the nooses comes as much of California is on edge about potential racial violence. The FBI and California Department of Justice are monitoring investigations into the deaths of two black men found hanging from trees in Victorville and Palmdale. Authorities initially said the men died by suicide.
The incident also comes as Oakland has been roiled by protests and property damage in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, as well as a federal investigation that revealed Tuesday that the man who fatally shot a guard in Oakland in late May had ties to a right-wing extremist movement known as "Boogaloo."
