From Time:

‘Date Your Own Kind.’ Man Put Racist Graffiti On His Own Car, Police Say By Associated Press November 7, 2017

(MANHATTAN, Kan.) — A black Kansas man has admitted he put racist graffiti on his own car as a Halloween prank that got out of hand, police said Monday.

Photographs posted on social media Wednesday showed the car covered with racial slurs against blacks and messages that included “Go Home,” ”Date your own kind,” and “Die.”

The vehicle, covered in graffiti scrawled with washable paint, was parked Wednesday at an apartment complex near Kansas State University and the incident fueled racial tensions at the university and in the community.

An emergency meeting of the Black Student Union called that evening drew concerned administrators and community leaders as well as students. Kansas State held a Facebook Live event the next day with worried parents. The university stepped up patrols on campus. The FBI opened a civil rights investigation into a possible hate crime.

But on Monday the Riley County Police Department issued a news release saying the 21-year-old owner of the vehicle, Dauntarius Williams, had told investigators that he was responsible for the graffiti.

Authorities concluded that charging him for filing a false report would “not be in the best interests of the citizens” of Manhattan.

Even the possibility of a hate crime has a big impact on the fabric of daily lives, and “we want to acknowledge that people felt anger and pain as a result of pictures and words that they saw,” Kansas State University spokesman Jeff Morris said Monday in a phone interview. “Those are very real responses.”

Given the climate in the country, the university plans to continue its stepped up patrols and its review into whether more cameras are needed to enhance safety on campus.

“The incident maybe wasn’t real — the emotions were,” Morris said.