KKK Halloween costumes spark outrage in US (VIDEO)

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.

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.