Headline Roundup • June 23rd, 2020
FBI Finds NASCAR's Wallace Not Targeted by Hate Crime
Summary from the AllSides News Team
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Washington Post
NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace was not the target of a hate crime, the FBI concluded Tuesday after completing its investigation into an incident involving a noose in the garage stall of the top-flight Cup Series’ only African American driver.
After 48 hours that rattled and then galvanized stock-car racing at a fraught moment for the sport and the nation, the FBI said no federal charges would be filed after it determined that the noose had been there since at least October 2019 and that “nobody could have known” that Wallace’s...
NASCAR went to Talladega Superspeedway on heightened alert after Bubba Wallace, its only Black driver, took on an active role in a push for racial equality.
Wallace had successfully called for the ban of the Confederate flag and received threats. Fans paraded past the main entrance of the Alabama track displaying the flag, and a plane circled above the speedway pulling a Confederate flag banner that read “Defund NASCAR.”
The FBI concluded on Tuesday that Bubba Wallace, NASCAR’s only African American driver, was not the target of a hate crime and that the “noose” found in his team’s garage was actually a standard pull rope that had been there since last year.
"The FBI report concludes, and photographic evidence confirms, that the garage door pull rope fashioned like a noose had been positioned there since as early as last fall. This was obviously well before the 43 team’s arrival and garage assignment,” NASCAR said in a statement.
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