With the spate of anti-police sentiment ongoing across several U.S. cities, it would be easy to link the discovery of three photographic images of black effigies with nooses on their necks that were hanging at the University of California, Berkeley campus to the deaths of black men in the hands of white police officers.

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After all, two of the effigies had the famous last word of chokehold victim Eric Garner written on it -
"I can't breathe."

But even campus officials such as Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks and Provost Claude Steel told ABC they are unsure what the intention was of the people who hanged the photographic images in prominent places of the campus.

A social psychology professor in the university, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, found the display of the effigies inflammatory as well as "triggering upset and anger. He added that since the protest marches already create an atmosphere of volatility, placing the effigies in prominent landmarks are misguided efforts.

Berkeley had a peaceful protest March on Saturday afternoon with about 300 participants, some of whom joined a bigger march in Oakland.

But for African American studies associate professor Leigh Raiford, it could be considered guerilla art since the images were of actual lynching victims. These images were used in the past by artists, such as Public Enemy, a rap group, for the cover of their single "Hazy Shade of Criminal" that they released in 1992.

The first image was that of black woman Laura Nelson, who was jailed in 1911 in Oklahoma because she allegedly shot to death a sheriff at her house. The body of Nelson and her 18-year-old son Lawrence, were hanged from a bridge by the lynch mob that abducted the two from their jail.

The second image tied to the campus's Sather Gate was that of 22-year-old George Meadows who was charged with rape and murder in Alabama. He was lynched by a mob of 500 men who took him from his jail and suspended him from a tree while his body was found riddled with bullets, reports the New York Daily News.

A university official said the police was investigating the incident as a hate crime.

Tagseffigy, anti-police rally, University of California Berkeley