A Hurricane police spokesman said detectives are unable to find that any crime was committed by two teenage girls who posted an Instagram photo that mimicked a lynching and used a racial epithet in the caption.
Police had been investigating the photo — which was uploaded on the holiday commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. — as a possible hate crime.
But on Friday, Hurricane police officer Ken Thompson said the teens appeared to be within their First Amendment rights.
“Just posting a caption isn’t a crime,” Thompson said.
Still, Thompson said, the case has been forwarded to the county attorney’s office to be sure the detectives didn’t overlook something.
Hate crimes — which in Utah are class A misdemeanors — are typically charged when a specific person is targeted or when hate is the motive for committing another crime such as assault.
In the photo posted on Jan. 15, a teen girl, according to a description from KUTV-Channel 2, had X’s over her eyes and had pretended to hang herself. The caption read “Happy national n----- day.”
A second teenage girl was implicated in the post, though Hurricane police did not specify her role.
The post quickly spread across social media and brought condemnation and threats against the girls, Thompson said last week.
Although the post was not made at school, Hurricane High School’s principal issued a statement via his own Instagram video to condemn the students’ post and urging everyone to reflect on the life and lessons of King.
The offending post apparently was made at the workplace of one of the girls, and her employer told KUTV she has been fired.
Some 300 miles to the north, the post caught the attention of Jeanetta Williams, president of the NAACP Salt Lake Branch, who called it “disgusting” and said the girls’ parents also should be held accountable.
The story has moved outside of Utah, too. Columnist and activist Shaun King, whose Twitter profile describes him as living in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Kentucky, shared the story with his followers.