Jacksonville Mayor, Sheriff blast ‘mock lynching’ of pig-masked mannequin dressed as cop

A human mannequin hangs on Interstate 95 in Jacksonville, Florida. [Image via Folio Weekly]

Jacksonville, set to host the Republican National Convention in just more than two months, woke up Saturday morning to a symbol of its social discord that the Mayor called “appalling and disturbing.”

According to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, officers early Saturday morning responded to what they thought was a “suicide by hanging” off an I-95 overpass on the city’s Northside. It was actually the hanging of a pigmasked mannequin in New York Police Department garb.

City leaders condemned the incident.

Mayor Lenny Curry excoriated the act on Twitter: “We are working to come together & invoke change & growth in our community. We won’t let an appalling & disturbing act like this derail our progress. I won’t tolerate actions like this so blatantly meant to intimidate our police nor will I stand for it against any citizen.”

Sheriff Mike Williams issued a statement describing the “mock lynching” of a police officer as “extremely disturbing.”

“Both the tactics and the props used were a deliberate attempt to exasperate [SIC] an anti-police sentiment and drive a divide in our community,” Williams said.

Effigy hangings such as this have become a trend, with symbolic violence perpetrated by protesters and counter-protesters against figures on both the left and the right of the current political spectrum.

In Oakland, where an effigy was found hanging from a tree earlier this week, the action is being investigated as a hate crime, and local and state law enforcement is working closely with the FBI, according to CBS News Bay Area.

In that context, it bears watching how this investigation develops, given the high-profile event headed to Jacksonville in August.

Protests, by and large, have been peaceful in the last few weeks.

But Jacksonville, as it prepares to host an incendiary President making what will be a series of call-to-action provocations, along with protesters from the left and right and potential destabilizing influences beyond that, will be under the microscope as it rushes to finalize logistics of the biggest political event in the city’s history.