That was my first thought too...that somebody could have just cut that off and threw it on his car or something. But the part that doesn't make that stick is how the neighboring garage's rope pull was manipulated. Somebody had untied the knot from the next-door garage and straightened out the rope, so that it no longer resembled a noose. The only reason somebody would do that would be an attempt to deceive, so that somebody (NASCAR, FBI, etc) wouldn't notice that it's identical to the "noose". If you were trying to intimidate Bubba or "send him a message", no way in hell you change the appearance of the rope in the next garage.