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Washtenaw County prosecutor will not charge EMU students who hung a black baby doll from a rope in a dorm bathroom, w/ racial intimidation charges. EMU Police investigated and requested the charges.
The police report I received from EMU has redacted all names of students. Here's a rundown: a student of "African American and Latino descent" walks into his dorm bathroom at 4 am and finds this doll hanging from the shower stall by a belt "tied in multiple knots." 
He records a video of the hanging doll on his phone, saying "this is the shit I deal with." The video makes the rounds on social media & to the EMU Black Student union. He took it down "after becoming angry and threw it on the bathroom floor."
He tells police he didn't confront his roommates at the time, because he was worried he'd "become upset and loose [sic] his job." Police ask if there's any history here of racial slurs, harassment from roommates. He says no.
Police ask around about the doll. One person, possibly an RA, says he remembers the doll sitting in a dorm room with a knife in its hand (see pic above) and says the unnamed students would "fill the doll from the vaginal end and drink water from it."
The roommates tell police the doll is a long running joke, and that one of their girlfriends bought it at goodwill. She says they would put the doll in various places in the room as part of the joke, and that "it was meant as a prank. No malicious intent."
She tells police they were given the hatchet as a gift "for cutting bread and butter" and they put it in the doll's hands b/c it "looked like a baby holding a knife." Someone else tells police that if they "knew it was a problem then this whole thing would have been avoided."
Looks like another roommate says they named the doll "Quikeria" and wouldn't drink from it, "just pour water through it." The girlfriend tells police she bought it b/c it was the only baby doll in the store and it "creeped out" her boyfriend b/c it made real sucking sounds.
She tells police she hung the doll from the shower curtain to startle the roommates when they went to the bathroom, "thinking it would start talking and they would jump."
"Of further note, [name redacted's] father has told us that [redacted] had attended a fairly diverse school...and had never had any issues regarding differing races prior to this."
Later, police are told the female student said she "had never really been taught about 'lynchings' as a part of history in relation to African Americans in school." Tells police she didn't think how it could be perceived.
I've asked the Washtenaw County's spokesperson to walk us through their thinking on not pressing charges here. Waiting for a response. Have to step out for a few hours but will post if I get one.
Got a response from Washtenaw Co. Prosecutor's office, here's their "denial of request for charges." First Assisting Prosecuting Attny Konrad Siller says the student's claim that she "hung the doll...as a prank" actually "offends the common sense of any reasonable person."
Siller says the unnamed student clearly meant to "harass [victim's name redacted] because of his race." But he says the way the law's written, he can't prosecute unless there's 1) physical contact or 2) property damage or 3) the victim was afraid of either 1 or 2 occurring
