FBI searches home after reported cross-burning as part of "criminal civil rights investigation"
The Federal Bureau of Investigation searched a house in South Carolina as a part of an “ongoing criminal civil rights investigation involving allegations of racial discrimination” on Wednesday.
The search comes shortly after two residents of Horry County, Alexis Paige Hartnett and Worden Evander Butler, were charged with harassment for allegedly setting up a cross facing a Black neighbor’s home on Corbett Drive and setting it on fire in late November, according to incident reports reviewed by CBS News.
Butler and Hartnett, who are both White, were outside the home as it was searched, CBS News affiliate WBTW reported. Hartnett was heard threatening to kill everyone at the scene, including law enforcement and media, WBTW said, and Butler kept his hands in the air in an effort to keep a photographer from recording or taking pictures of him.
In addition to the alleged cross-burning, Hartnett and Butler had “harassed and stalked” the neighbors “with racially motivated words and actions,” according to the incident report. The day before the alleged cross burning, Butler entered the neighbor’s property without permission and tried to interrupt work being done on the neighbor’s home before shouting racial slurs.
