A white Grosse Pointe Park man will not face charges for hanging a Ku Klux Klan flag in a window facing the house of a Black woman in an effort to harass and intimidate the neighbor, the Detroit News reports.
The unnamed man put the flag up in a window directly within view of the dining room window of JeDonna Dinges after Dinges installed a security camera to monitor the area between the two houses. Dinges said she did so because she feared for the safety of her family after she found a filled gas can in her garage.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced Tuesday said displaying the flag does not meet the threshold required for charges under Michigan’s Ethnic Intimidation Statute, which requires “physical contact, damage, destruction, defacement of property, or threats to do so.”
“There is absolutely no question that what happened to Ms. Dinges was despicable, traumatizing, and completely unacceptable,” Worthy said. “But, very unfortunately in my view, not a crime. The KKK flag, while intending to be visible to Ms. Dinges, was hanging inside of her neighbor’s house. We could not even begin to charge Ethnic Intimidation under current Michigan law. I strongly encourage the Michigan Legislature to look, revise, and create laws to protect citizens from this kind of horrible conduct.”
The presence of the flag prompted hundreds of neighbors and community members to protest in front of the man’s house February 21st.
Acknowledging that Worthy was limited in what prosecutors could do by the statute, Dinges said, “I’m a decent person. This person is a racist. Someone putting a Klan flag is an act of hatred. It is a threat. The prosecutor saying it doesn’t meet the level of a hate crime does not mean it’s not a threat. I feel threatened. The average person would not own a Klan flag, which is a true symbol of hatred.”