Black Michigan woman says neighbors hung KKK flag, put gas can in her trash

A Black Michigan woman spoke out against her neighbors after they allegedly put gas in her trash and then hung a KKK flag in their window.

Je Donna Dinges, a 57-year-old Grosse Pointe Park resident, said she was “furious” with her neighbor’s actions while the police said they weren’t able to do anything about it, the Detroit Free Press reported.

“I was furious. How dare he feel comfortable putting a symbol of hatred, violence and domestic terrorism at his window facing my house? How dare he,” said Dinges. 

Dinges got the media involved after she was ignored by other authorities and community officials.

“I said, ‘I’m not calling the police,’ He said ‘Why?’ and I said, ‘Because they’re not going to do anything,'” Dingus said, recalling a conversation she had with a friend who had encouraged her to report the incident. “If they didn’t do anything when someone put gas next to my house, gas is more serious than a Klan flag. They’re not going to do anything about that either.”

Dinges contacted Grosse Pointe Park Department of Public Safety, the FBI and the Michigan attorney general’s office in Detroit, who she said also did nothing.

Once Dinges’s friend reached out to WDIV-TV and they spoke with the police chief, the police went and talked to the neighbors. 

The neighbors removed the flag from their window and have not bothered Dinges since the cops talked to them. 

“Everybody here, every man, woman and child regardless of their race, creed, color, sexual orientation, sexual identity, religion deserves to be treated with respect and dignity, deserves to be treated well, deserves to be safe in your home and when they walk down the street,” Dinges said.

The community is hosting a rally on Sunday to support Dinges’s family and “to make it clear hate has NO Home in GP,” the Facebook page for the event says.