From Whitaker-Blakey v. State, decided two weeks ago by Indiana Court of Appeals Judge Rudolph Pyle III, joined by Judges Leanna Weissmann and Paul Felix:
In January 2024, … [police] Officer Phillips …, who is a black woman, parked her unmarked police car in the Muncie City Hall parking lot. Officer Phillips was dressed “business casual” with her “gun and badge on” over her blouse. Officer Phillips exited her car and began walking around the rear of it. Suddenly, a man “popped up” from behind a parked, marked police car in the parking lot about ten feet away from Officer Phillips.
The man was wearing a “white hood” with the “eyes cut out” and had a backpack. While Officer Phillips was looking in the man’s direction, the man stepped closer to her and said the word “nigger[.]” The man did not say anything else to Officer Phillips and did not make any gestures or hand movements towards Officer Phillips. Officer Phillips was the only person in the parking lot with the man.
Officer Phillips “tried to keep an eye on” the man while walking “briskly” into the building. The man started walking away and removed the white hood….
When the man was later found and arrested,
Officers found in Whitaker-Blakey’s possession a white pillowcase with holes cut out for the eyes. During the interview, Whitaker-Blakey admitted to wearing the white hood and saying the racial slur. However, Whitaker-Blakey told Sergeant Winningham that he had worn the white hood because it was cold outside.
Whitaker-Blakey also told Sergeant Winningham that he had not directed the racial slur at Officer Phillips, but instead, had directed the racial slur to other white men across the street. Whitaker-Blakey told Sergeant Winningham that he believed that Officer Phillips possibly was a “CIA operative – FBI – or a detective.” Whitaker-Blakey also told Sergeant Winningham that he had gone to a “meeting” of a white supremacist group and “had more knowledge than [Sergeant Winningham] had of these groups.” Whitaker-Blakey told Sergeant Winningham that he was not a member of a white supremacist group….
Whitaker-Blakey was prosecuted for making a threat to “unlawfully injure the person threatened,” and was convicted in a bench trial (at which “Officer Phillips testified that she had been the only person nearby and definitely the only person of color in the parking lot when Whitaker-Blakey had said the racial slur”). The trial court stated, among other things,
Mr. Whitaker-Blakey, you were [ ]dressed as a person who is typically identified as a Ku Klux member. When I look at these exhibits – that’s immediately what comes to mind.
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[W]hat I take [from] the circumstances surrounding you being crouched down behind a vehicle – wearing a hood – popping up – stepping towards Officer Phillips and saying nigger – is that you want her to feel like you’re going to commit a crime against her – injure her – make her fight – make her do something against her will which is defend herself. That’s why it was a threat. If you’d stated that to not just a black female, but to any[ ] black person in the manner in which you did – that is a threat, and I believe it was your intention to cause that threat because of the way you conducted yourself.
The trial court also “found that it did not consider Whitaker-Blakey’s justification for wearing the white hood – due to the cold weather – to be credible.”
The court affirmed:
Before assessing the merits of this case, we note that it is undeniable that the word “nigger used conventionally – namely as an insult – continues to be an oft-heard feature of the soundtrack of American racism at its most base and violent. Any serious discussion of the N-word and proper ways to respond to its various uses must include an appreciation of the persistent weaponization of nigger by racists.” Randall Kennedy, Nigger: The Strange Career Of A Troublesome Word x (Pantheon Books rev. ed. 2022). The use of such a racial slur “flows from the fountain of purpose to injure.“
Additionally, it is historically settled that the Ku Klux Klan is a violent white supremacist organization with a history of terrorizing people of color, black people in particular. Since the Ku Klux Klan’s inception in 1866, it has “employed tactics such as whipping, threatening to burn people at the stake, and murder.” The symbols associated with the Ku Klux Klan are also well known and include the burning cross, white hood, and mask….
Turning back to the case at hand, our review of the record reveals that Whitaker-Blakey crouched behind a parked police car while wearing a white hood with holes cut out for his eyes. When Officer Phillips parked nearby and walked around her unmarked police car, Whitaker-Blakey stood up, approached Officer Phillips, and said the word nigger. Officer Phillips briskly walked into Muncie City Hall because she feared for her safety. Whitaker-Blakey walked away and removed the white hood.
Whitaker-Blakey’s statement was directed towards Officer Phillips. The context of Whitaker-Blakey’s statement was one in which Whitaker-Blakey popped up from behind a parked car and approached a black, female officer, who was alone in a parking lot, while wearing a white hood with eye holes cut out of it. Whitaker-Blakey told Sergeant Winningham that he had gone to a “meeting” of a white supremacist group and “had more knowledge than [Sergeant Winningham] had of these groups.” Further, Officer Phillips reacted with fear due to Whitaker-Blakey’s act. Officer Phillips specifically testified that she had feared for her safety and associated the white sheet with the Ku Klux Klan, lynchings, murders, and rapes of black women. As a result, we hold that Whitaker-Blakey’s use of the word nigger while wearing a white sheet on his head demonstrates a clear intent to communicate a threat to Officer Phillips, who was a law enforcement officer.
Whitaker-Blakey attempts to argue that he had not directed the word nigger at Officer Phillips and that he had only worn the white sheet on his head to “stay warm” during a “cold January morning[.]”But, Whitaker-Blakey made these same arguments at his bench trial, and the trier of fact did not find these arguments to be credible….
Whitaker-Blakey also argues that there is insufficient evidence that he intended that Officer Phillips be “placed in fear that the threat w[ould] be carried out.” In support of his contention, Whitaker-Blakey notes that aside from Officer Phillips’ testimony regarding her fear of physical harm, “no one at the trial actually attempted to specifically articulate what Whitaker-Blakey’s threat actually entailed.” However, the trial court inferred through Whitaker-Blakey’s actions – crouching behind a car, popping up wearing a white hood, stepping towards Officer Phillips, and calling her a nigger – that Whitaker-Blakey expressed an intention to unlawfully injure Officer Phillips. Based on our review of the record and historical context of his actions and the word that was uttered, we are led to the same reasonable inference made by the trial court. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.
Megan Smith (Deputy Attorney General) represents the state.
