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CAPITOL
Law elevates display of noose as a threat to a felony
BY VALERIE BAUMAN The Associated Press

    Gov. David Paterson signed legislation Thursday that will make it a felony to display a noose as a threat.
    The crime would be punishable by up to four years in prison.
    “It is sad that in these modern times there remains a need to address the problem of individuals who use nooses as a means of threat and intimidation,” Paterson said in a statement. “But it is a reality, and if we ignore it we would be derelict in our duty.”
    Paterson says the legislation still isn’t enough and New York law will need to be strengthened more.
    Nooses were found last year on a black professor’s door at Columbia University, outside a post office near ground zero in lower Manhattan and in locations on Long Island.
    The symbol of lynchings has shown up in other high-profile incidents around the country — in a black Coast Guard cadet’s bag, on a Maryland college campus and in the Jena Six case in Louisiana, where six black teenagers were charged with beating a white student. The incident happened after nooses were hung from a tree on a high school campus there.
    New York isn’t the first state to consider making it a crime to threaten with a noose, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Connecticut passed a bill this year making it a misdemeanor unless property is damaged, which would be a felony. At least two other states, Louisiana and Maryland, have considered similar legislation.
    In New York, the current crime of aggravated harassment in the first degree applies to conduct committed with intent to harass, annoy, threaten or alarm a victim chosen for reasons of bias.

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It would be a criminal axct if it were Senator Obama because in  fact it would violate the civil rights he has and anyone doing it to him should go to jail period my friends. Dont forget he is a black man and the nuese is something very very evil to a black person over there

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Obama effigy found on U. of Kentucky campus       
Oct 29 04:36 PM US/Eastern
By JEFFREY McMURRAY
                                   
          LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - University of Kentucky authorities were investigating Wednesday who hanged an effigy of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama from a tree on campus.

College spokesman Carl Nathe said the effigy was found Wednesday morning. Police immediately took it down. A faculty member said he saw the effigy with a noose around its neck, hanging from a high tree branch.

University President Lee Todd said he planned to apologize to the Obama family on behalf of the school and that he is "personally offended and deeply embarrassed by this disgusting episode."

Federal authorities have been notified, Todd said. He said the effigy violates the university's code of ethics and won't be tolerated.

"I am outraged because we work very hard, every day, to build bridges across the divides," Todd said. "Diversity and inclusion are among our most precious core values. Episodes like this serve only to erode our confidence in and respect for one another."

Mike Lynch, a faculty member who works in a building near where the effigy was found, said he saw it around 8:40 a.m. He described it as life-sized with a Barack Obama Halloween mask, a suit jacket and sweat pants.

"This, as far as I'm concerned, says nothing—absolutely nothing—representative of this university or this community," he said.

Obama's Kentucky campaign director, Kenya McGruder, had no immediate comment.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan declined to comment specifically on the situation, but said an effigy can suggest a threatening tone or be an attempt to intimidate. He said the agency is "very proactive about addressing these matters."

It's the second time an effigy has been found on a college campus recently. George Fox University in Oregon, a small Christian college, punished four students who confessed to hanging a likeness of Obama from a tree.

That effigy was found in September with a message taped to it—"Act Six reject." The message was targeted at participants of a scholarship program geared toward increasing the number of minority and low-income students and several Christian colleges, mostly in the Northwest.

In West Hollywood, Calif., authorities on Wednesday were looking into a Halloween display depicting a mannequin of GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin hanging from a noose. The display also displayed her running mate, John McCain, surrounded by fake flames.

At the University of Kentucky, Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Center interim director Chester Grundy said he was outraged by the incident. A rally was being planned for 7 p.m. EDT Wednesday, where staff and student leaders are expected to speak in response, he said.

Gov. Steve Beshear called the incident "embarrassing" and "deeply offensive."

"This was not political speech. It was simply hate," he said.

Raoul Cunningham, president of the Louisville chapter of the NAACP, said he is still trying to sort out his feelings "because there may be a double-meaning because Barack Obama is black, that he would be hung from a tree—that goes back to lynching."

John Johnson, executive director of the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, called the action unacceptable even if it was a prank.

"It's astonishing that somebody would do that at this day and time," he said. "You would hope that our country has progressed further than that."