A sheriff in a rural Nevada area is investigating a possible hate crime after a black man said he was racially harassed

RENO, Nev. — A rural Nevada sheriff is investigating a possible hate crime after a Black man collecting signatures for a ballot measure recorded a confrontation with another man who he says called him a racial slur and said “they have a gallows tree” for people like him.

“I still shake every time I think about it,” Ricky Johnson told The Associated Press by phone Monday as he boarded a plane in northern Nevada headed back to his home in Houston, Texas.

Johnson posted part of the video of the Aug. 2 incident in Virginia City, Nev., on social media, and the comments drew swift condemnation from local and state officials. Sponsors of the 10-day Hot August Nights class car event that was taking place at the time said they revoked the registrations of the people identified in the video confronting Johnson.

Storey County Undersheriff Eric Kern said Monday that the office has completed interviews with Johnson and possible suspects and has turned the case over to the district attorney for a charging decision.

“As far as a hate crime, that could be an element,” Kern told AP. “We are looking at the possibility of escalation.”

Johnson, who does not appear in the video he posted on TikTok, said a white man called him a racial epithet and referenced the “hanging tree” before he began recording the encounter. In the recording, Johnson asks the man to repeat what he said.

A heated argument filled with profanity ensued on both sides before a woman told Johnson he was on her property and he repeatedly asked her not to touch him as they moved the conversation outside, the video shows.

Kern said Johnson provided the video to investigators and that no one, suspect or victim, has been reluctant to cooperate in the investigation.

In a statement over the weekend, the sheriff’s office said it does not condone racism, inequality or hate speech and wants to assure the public it is conducting a thorough investigation.

“But I mean, in general, in Virginia City, this is not something that happens here,” Kern said. “It’s really sad, but it’s an isolated incident. It’s caused a lot of negative impacts on all sides because people are getting negative feedback. People are calling businesses.”

Storey County District Attorney Anne Langer did not respond to an emailed request for comment Monday. A spokeswoman for her office referred calls to County Administrator Austin Osborne. Osborne’s office said he was not available.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, who is Black, on Monday offered his support to the Storey County Sheriff’s Office in its investigation into what he said was a “racist and hateful incident” in one of Nevada’s most historic cities.

Virginia City attracts tens of thousands of tourists who stroll its wooden-plank sidewalks lined with old saloons and shops in the Virginia Range, just east of the Sierra, about 30 minutes from Reno.

It was Nevada’s largest city in the mid-19th century, when the discovery of the Comstock Lode attracted thousands of silver miners. Samuel Clemens began working in the newspaper business and adopted his pen name, Mark Twain, there, at Territorial Enterprise.

Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo posted on social media that he was concerned and disappointed by the incident.

“Racism and hate have no place in Nevada – this behavior must be condemned in the strongest possible terms,” he wrote in X.

The Virginia City Tourism Commission denounced the “hateful and racist” behavior as “abhorrent and inexcusable.”

Johnson was working for Advanced Micro Targeting Inc., a Texas-based company that provides voter outreach and turnout promotion services, to collect signatures for a Nevada statewide ballot initiative aimed at limiting the fees attorneys charge their clients in personal injury cases.

Johnson said he had been the target of racial slurs before, but the Virginia City incident was different.

“Being in the middle of all that and having no escape, feeling like you’re surrounded by all those people, I felt trapped,” he said.