#Wisconsin man in KKK outfit seen walking dog, waving at motorists

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Charles Michael Booth was seen walking his dog in a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood.
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A Wisconsin man was spotted casually walking his dog while wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe – prompting at least three calls to cops, according to reports.

Vilas County Sheriff’s officials said the man, identified as Charles Michael Booth, 50, was “out walking his dog, wearing a Ku Klux Klan shirt, drinking a beer and waving at traffic” in Conover late Friday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Deputies made contact with Booth after getting multiple calls about him as he walked near Monheim Road and Highway K, but the Conover man won’t face any charges for his hateful get-up since he there was “no traffic problem” caused by his evening excursion, Sheriff Joseph Fath told the newspaper.

Booth told deputies he was “just taking his dog for a walk,” Fath said, adding that the man wasn’t violating any laws with his KKK regalia.

“I don’t anticipate any follow-up on it,” Fath told the newspaper.

The sheriff’s department received “at least three calls” from passers-by who spotted Booth in his KKK outfit, some of whom claimed he walking in the middle of the road, WAOW reports.

A deputy even stopped Booth at one point and determined he wasn’t creating a traffic hazard, Fath said.

“It’s a country road,” Fath told WJFW. “It’s not in anybody’s particular neighborhood. It should not have bothered anybody. I realize that that may be offensive to some people, but it’s not a crime.”

But the president of the Dane County NAACP chapter is insisting Booth’s “terrorist act” was intended to instill fear in others.

“[Booth] intended to project what I believe to be white supremacist behaviors by wearing this garb,” Gregory Jones told the Journal Sentinel. “It is intended to create fear among people – even people who are not of color. [Vilas County residents] should be mindful and be willing to stand up and say this is not acceptable in our country at all.”

A message left for Booth early Monday was not immediately returned.

One woman who saw Booth walking late Friday said he “politely waved” as she and her husband noticed him, saying the encounter was “surreal,” she told the Journal Sentinel.

“We froze,” the woman recalled. “We knew what we were looking at, but we didn’t know why. We were so in shock.”