A group dressed in Ku Klux Klan (KKK)-style robes and pointed hoods has sparked outrage in Texas after videos of the Halloween stunt went viral, prompting a police investigation.
The footage shows several people dressed in the white supremacist group’s distinctive attire walking through a residential neighborhood in El Paso and shouting racial slurs. According to local social media accounts, they were teenagers attending a Halloween party.
DISTURBING: A group dressed in KKK robes for Halloween filmed themselves yelling a racial slur. The El Paso clip is sparking outrage online. #ViralVideo #Halloween https://t.co/b7EHLLni0c
El Paso police said on Monday that they were reviewing the footage and related reports to determine whether any laws had been broken.
“Symbols and language associated with the Ku Klux Klan represent a history of terror, violence and racial hatred,” El Paso Police Chief Peter Pacillas said in a statement on X on Monday. Treating such imagery as “a costume or a joke is unacceptable,” he added.
The incident also drew condemnation from the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
In a statement cited by local media, the NAACP expressed “utter outrage, disgust and righteous indignation” over the imagery.
Wearing KKK-style clothing is not in itself a crime under US law, although threatening or intimidating conduct may constitute an offense.
Founded after the US Civil War, the KKK became notorious for terrorizing racial and ethnic minorities, primarily blacks, through murder and various forms of intimidation. Membership peaked at an estimated 4 to 5 million people nationwide during the mid-1920s, at a time when only 10-11 million Americans were black.
The incident follows several other recent controversies involving KKK imagery across the US.
Earlier this month, the University of Maryland suspended its club tennis team indefinitely after members circulated tournament materials featuring KKK-style hoods incorporated into the state flag. The images prompted complaints from students at Howard University, a historically Black institution.
In September, a man wearing KKK robes near a Trader Joe’s supermarket in California was arrested for public intoxication. Police said there was no evidence of a hate crime and that wearing the offensive costume was not itself illegal.
Last Halloween, a student in Tennessee was sent home and disciplined after appearing at school dressed as a KKK member. The student had reportedly initially claimed to be wearing a priest’s costume.
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