Dante Petty and his daughter moved to Grapevine, Texas one year ago this June, and that's when their problems began.
The black family began posting videos on Facebook about their neighbor Glenn Halfin, who threw eggs and dog feces on the Petty's car, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Petty captured the video with a camera he put outside of his apartment and captured the 64-year-old firefighter and former arson investigator tying a rope around the neck of a doll and hanging it from the railing outside of the Petty's apartment.
Halfin was ultimately arrested on a charge of stalking in January, according to Tarrant County records. However, on Friday, he was charged with a misdemeanor civil rights offense. The harassment falls under fair housing standards that prevents interference or threats to a person of color's housing rights.
The official complaint said Halfin tried to intimidate the Petty family "because of their race and color" by placing "a rope noose around the neck of a baby doll" and hanging the doll "on a railing directly in front of the stairwell."
The apartment complex evicted Halfin in January after a default judgment against him, the Morning News said, citing court records.
"I just wanna show people that racism is very well ALIVE AND REAL," he said in the post. "Thank God I put a camera up outside my apt because when I saw this man hanging a doll off the rails I was so fill (sic) up with anger I was ready to kill this man," Petty said in a January Facebook post.
Given the arson investigator was revealed as a racist, it brings into question some of his work and if any of his cases reached racially-motivated conclusions.
You can view some of the photos from Petty below:
