A single hoaxer can inflate these statistics considerably. Because real incidents are so uncommon, and because they are so useful to manipulate people and institutions when they do occur, the temptation to fabricate them is strong. Police officers who investigate these incidents privately report that perhaps as many as 25 per cent of them are hoaxes. Incidents which are ruthlessly exploited by the victims to attain victim celebrity status, or to pursue a social or political agenda, or to obtain financial benefits. These reports bring him much attention.
Newspaper accounts portray the university as a hotbed of racism.
On the strength of the complaint, the University calls in the FBI, the Justice Department and a special investigator from the Missouri Highway Patrol. During the course of an interrogation by Sergeant Larry R. Stobbs of the Highway Patrol, Mr Banks admits that the complaints were a hoax of his own making. Laurie A. Recht, a Jewish legal secretary and supporter of court-ordered desegregation in Yonkers, New York, reports receiving many death threats over several months following a meeting where she was heckled by angry whites. Ms Recht becomes a media heroine for her actions and is awarded an honorary degree. To catch the perpetrators, the FBI installs a television camera outside her apartment and taps her telephone line.