(DCNF)—A black city official in Pennsylvania is charged with faking a racist threat that triggered outrage from activists and a response from the FBI.
Allentown, Pennsylvania school board member LaTarsha Brown allegedly planned a small noose on her own desk in Allentown’s City Hall in January before telling authorities she was targeted, police said Monday in a press release Brown previously filed workplace discrimination claims against City Hall but now faces possible jail time over the noose incident, which prompted cries of rampant bigotry from figures such as Democratic city council member Ce-Ce Gerlach, local media reported.
“Our employees are not safe. The black employees are not safe. It’s everyone,” Gerlach declared in January when the noose claim was first reported. “It’s the white allies [who] are not safe. Brown people are not safe. Gay people are not safe. Anyone in any marginalized community when you are working in a building in which a noose was found, you are not safe,” Gerlach said.
Brown and Gerlach did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Pennsylvania chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations also demanded a hate crime probe in January after the “vile sign of anti-Black racism” was found in Brown’s office.
“We call on the City of Allentown to take this report seriously and establish a clear plan to ensure the safety of all of its employees,” CAIR-Philadelphia said. The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
The Allentown Police Department alleged that Brown refused to submit for DNA testing — unlike every other employee who was asked to — and later “requested that the investigation be discontinued.” Protesters demanded that the FBI get involved with the investigation, and the agency did in January, according to local media.
State-level police allegedly found her DNA on the noose and did not find anyone else’s, the police department said.
Brown is charged with tampering with or fabricating physical evidence and making a false police report, which together carry up to three years in prison and fines. The Allentown Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A profile from Allentown School District says Brown “is deeply committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion” in her work.
Brown isn’t the first to face criminal charges over an alleged racism hoax. Actor Jussie Smollett was famously sentenced in 2022 for hiring men to assault him while pretending they were Republicans who hated him for being black. The Illinois Supreme Court overturned his conviction in November 2024.
The charges against Brown also bear similarities to a controversy from 2020, when the FBI investigated claims that someone had hung a noose in the garage of black NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace. The FBI found no evidence of a threat against Wallace and said the supposed noose was a door pull that had been hanging for months.
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