An Essex man has been indicted on civil rights charges stemming from an April 2010 incident in which a dead raccoon was found hanging from a noose on a Middle River family's front porch.
According to the indictment, which comes nearly two years after the incident, Joshua Wall conspired with four unnamed people to hang a dead raccoon from the familiy's porch on April 29, 2010. Wall is the only person charged in the case; the other co-conspirators are listed only by their initials.
Wall's mother, Rebecca Stracke, said in a telephone interview that her son "doesn't hate black people."
"I didn't raise him to be prejudiced," she said. "He wasn't on his medication; I think he wasn't in his right mind."
The indictment was handed up on Feb. 3, and is signed by Thomas E. Perez, the assistant attorney general in charge of theU.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. Spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa declined to comment, saying it was an ongoing investigation.
Baltimore County police said the FBI picked up the investigation in June 2010; the FBI declined to comment at the direction of the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The incident appears to have occurred in the 1500 block of Becklow Ave. Police at that time said they were investigating the discovery of a noose as a "racial, religion, and ethnic bias" incident and fourth-degree burglary. Police said the victims had emmigrated from Africa within the last three or four years.
Stracke said Wall and the others hung the noose as revenge after one of their friends was beaten up. She said Wall, who is bi-polar, is currently incarcerated on a violation of probation stemming from a second-degree assault conviction in Baltimore County but the family knew charges were pending in the noose case.
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Wall's attorney, John Robinson III, said he could not comment on the case until it was resolved.
