First Civil Hate Crime Lawsuit In Savanna

For the first time since lawmakers expanded the state’s hate crime law in 2018, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is launching a civil lawsuit against two Illinoisans for allegedly engaging in hate crimes.

The lawsuit says two residents of Carroll County in northwest Illinois lynched an effigy of their neighbor, who is Black, to intimidate him. Cheryl Hampton and her adult son, Chad Hampton, both white, also allegedly displayed a Confederate flag and a racial slur in a window facing their neighbor Gregory Johnson’s home.

Raoul’s complaint argued the effigy was used “as a threat of racial v...