MEMPHIS, Tenn. — An alleged lynching threat in a southeast Memphis shopping center parking lot led to charges of civil rights intimidation and assault against a Shelby County man.
According to police, a woman told them she was leaving a shopping cart in a parking space at Winchester and Hacks Cross Road on Wednesday. That’s when a man in a white sedan began yelling at her, she said.
The woman told police the man rolled down his car window and said, “N*****, I’ll hang you from a tree.” He blocked her vehicle in its parking spot, temporarily preventing her from leaving, she said.
The victim “was placed in fear of her life from the anger that was displayed toward her,” police wrote in a statement. She later identified the man to police in a photo lineup.
Clinton Jeffries, 52, went to a police station Thursday and verbally admitted to blocking the woman’s vehicle, calling her a racial slur and threatening to hang her, police said.
WREG went to the address he provided police to speak with him, but no one came to the door.
Meanwhile Friday, shoppers were in disbelief hearing what the woman reported to police about the encounter.
“It’s very offensive. It’s very disrespectful,” said Erica McNabb. “In these days and time we should learn to love each other. Color is nothing.”
McNabb says she sadly had similar encounters many times in her life, but says times are changing and people’s hearts need to follow suit.
“We have to come together. It’s so much division in this world. We have to come together for us to survive,” McNabb said.
Jeffries is charged with civil rights intimidation and assault. He posted bond earlier Friday and is due in court in March.
