Police have come by twice, and at least one black leader has raised complaints about a woman's outdoor Halloween display, which includes a dummy hanging from a tree.
Plastic bats dangle about Patti Crezee's yard, a fright-show scene is played out in a flower bed and jack-o-lanterns are everywhere.It's about the same display the family has put out for the past two years. But this time, some reviews have been negative.
"It's a black person hanging in a tree," said James Gillespie of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "It looks like a lynching.
"We've had some calls from people saying we should go over and tear it down, but we can't do that. We can't go onto the property," Gillespie said.
Crezee said she was stunned by the reaction.
"I didn't do it in any reference to black people. . . . I was so shocked to think, after having the same dummy up for three years, that someone would think that. I have very good friends who are black," she said.
The NAACP official, who lives in Washington Terrace a few blocks away from the Crezees, said Wednesday he may show the family some of his photographs from his youth in the South.
"I'm from Mississippi," he said. "I've seen black people hanging in trees . . . two or three days."