Bath Township - When Kenya Harvey returned home from work early Saturday, she saw a "burned, black mannequin head with a knife in it" in a tree outside her apartment.
Earlier that morning before leaving for work, the telecommunication junior heard voices outside her Village at Chandler Crossings apartment.
"I heard people chanting outside my apartment saying, 'Burn baby, burn,'" she said. "When I came back from work I saw the head and I figured that the people shouting were the people who did this."
Bath Township police Sgt. Scott Rose said officers investigated the complaint and three MSU students have admitted to burning the mannequin head. Rose said police don't believe it was a racially motivated crime and are not pursuing charges.
Hours after Harvey found the mannequin, community leaders and students met at the apartment complex to discuss the incident.
"The law says if one group of people of a certain race intimidates people of another race, then it is ethnic intimidation," said James Gill, president of the Lansing chapter of the NAACP, who attended the gathering. He added events such as this are nothing new to the community.
"We, as black people, should seek to prosecute this to the fullest extent."
A person found guilty under Michigan's ethnic intimidation law, a felony described as the "specific intent to intimidate or harass another person because of that person's race, color, religion, gender or national origin," can be punished by up to two years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Another meeting, closed to the media, which was held Sunday on campus, allowed students to discuss recent incidents on campus and possible plans of action.
The incident, which follows events such as an offensive flier in Shaw Hall and derogatory language in Emmons Hall, could be a sign of violence to come, Harvey said.
"(MSU President M. Peter) McPherson needs to know about this because this is more than just a flier," she said. "My fear is that the next event will be violence directed to a black student.
"It's going to take the support and hard work of everyone to get something solved."
MSU spokesman Terry Denbow said acts such as this demand university attention. "We condemn any act like this, and it deserves our open, immediate and consistent condemnation," he said.
