Noose found at Alameda High School investigated as a hate crime

ALAMEDA, Calif. (KTVU) - Alameda Police say they are investigating a noose found at Alameda High as a hate crime. The four-foot long noose was found by a teacher near the tennis courts at the corner of Oak Street and Encinal Avenue on Tuesday afternoon. 

"Our school resource officer responded there immediately and found what appeared to be a noose hanging from the fence onto the sidewalk. It was laying on the sidewalk," said Alameda Police Lt. Hosh Durani. 

Police don't have any suspects, but they do know where the rope came from. 

"The rope that was used was taken from the fence at the school, has privacy curtains," Durani said. "Normally that privacy curtain is held up by the rope that goes through the eyelets and hangs."

The school district says parents were notified through robocalls within an hour of the incident.

"We are a district that firmly believes everyone belongs here," said Susan Davis, Alameda Unified School District spokeswoman. "We denounce any kind of hatred or bigotry and we know our high school stands behind us on that." 

"This is a serious thing," said Courtney Smith, whose son is a senior at the school. "This is an ancestral thing." 

At Alameda High, the percentage of African American students is a little over five percent. 

"The story of the noose was hurtful, you know it was hurtful," Smith said. "We see the climate that's happening around the country so we understand, so when I saw it, when I heard it,  it was hurtful. And then you go into protection mode in terms of your son and you care about their safety."

Many students we talked to hadn't heard about incident. 

"I'm concerned about it, just based on the fact of the amount of white kids that's here and there a very, very small amount of African Americans," said student Zaire Campbell. 

Another student, Kennedy Miller said, "it's kind of, I want to say, disgusting to go to this school with such diversity and just for someone to put that up there."

Besides the noose found on campus, Alameda Police are still investigating other incidents including vandalism at a synagogue, fliers with swastikas left on a street. Anyone with information in any of these cases is asked to call Alameda Police.