Seventh Noose Found at Amazon Construction Site in Connecticut, Police Say

According to the police, the first noose was discovered on April 27, hanging from a steel beam on the second floor of the building, in an area that was not monitored by surveillance cameras and was accessible to hundreds of employees from various companies.

The police said that, according to the construction supervisor, the site safety team had documented the episode and discarded the noose.

Two days later, on April 29, detectives were notified that five “additional ropes that could be interpreted as nooses” were found in various places throughout the building, the police said. The ropes were collected as evidence and were to undergo testing, the police said, adding that no other messages or markings had been found.

On Wednesday, the Windsor police said that officers working on the site had been made aware of a seventh rope that “could be interpreted as a noose” hanging from a beam. Detectives collected the rope as evidence and planned to send it to the state lab for analysis, the police said.

“The Town of Windsor prides itself in being an inclusive and diverse community,” the police said. “These incidents do not represent the character of our community. We stand united in condemning these acts that are hateful and intolerant.”

Cases of racism on construction sites are not uncommon, according to Construction Dive, a news site focused on the construction and building industry, which said that 65 percent of the readers it surveyed last year had witnessed racist incidents on job sites. Those incidents included nooses, graffiti and slurs. Seventy-seven percent of readers said that nothing had been done to address the incidents.

The F.B.I. said it was lending resources and support to the Windsor police.

“The implications of a hanging noose anywhere are unacceptable and will always generate the appropriate investigative response,” David Sundberg, the special agent in charge of the New Haven field office, said in a statement.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/nyregion/amazon-nooses-connecticut.html