A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., has indicted Christopher Shane Montgomery for conspiring to commit a hate crime, tampering with a witness, and lying to federal authorities. According to a press release from the FBI, Montgomery, who is a resident of Bastrop, La., faces up to 40 years in prison.
The north Louisiana man is accused of helping hang a dead raccoon in a noose outside a school to intimidate African American students. The four-count indictment alleges that on or about Nov. 6, 2007, the 33-year-old Montgomery and another person not identified in the indictment, tied a noose around the dead animal and hung it from a flagpole at Beekman Junior High School in Bastrop. Allegedly, the hanging was in retaliation against a court-ordered busing policy that sent the black students to the formerly all-white school.
Attorney Kevonne Small of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Mudrick of the Western District of Louisiana will prosecute the case. –torrance stephens, ph.d.
