A California man who was pictured wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood while shopping in a grocery store will not be charged due to “insufficient evidence,” according to a statement from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department. The picture, which went viral and sparked outrage, prompted the sheriff’s department to investigate the incident at a Vons store in Santee. “The man expressed frustration with the coronavirus and having people tell them what he can and cannot do,” the sheriff’s statement reads. “He said that wearing the hood was not intended to be a racial statement.” San Diego County Supervisor Dianne Jacob tweeted after the picture came to light, saying that “this blatant racism has no place in Santee or any part of San Diego County.”
The sheriff’s department, however, cited a Supreme Court opinion in its statement explaining why charges were not pursued: “The proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express the thought that we hate.”
