Noose in county employee’s work truck leads to suspension, South Carolina officials say
An apparent noose was found hanging in a county-owned work truck, sparking calls for a worker to be fired in South Carolina.
Georgetown County says it conducted an internal investigation into the Parks and Recreation Department employee who was assigned that vehicle and suspended the worker with no pay for two weeks.
The investigation started July 14, the same day the county received a report that a noose was in a county vehicle, spokesperson Jackie R. Broach wrote Monday in an email to McClatchy News.
In addition to the suspension, the employee was ordered to “attend diversity/sensitivity training” and placed on a six-month probation for “violation of Georgetown County’s anti-harassment policies regarding acts of misconduct including threats and lack of good judgment,” the spokesperson said.
What appears to be a rope tied in the shape of a noose was dangling off the rearview mirror of the worker’s parked pickup truck, according to photos obtained by WCBD and other news outlets.
“As this is a personnel issue, no further comment on the matter will be issued by Georgetown County,” the spokesperson said. The county is on the coast, south of Myrtle Beach.
Some have called for an expanded investigation and for the employee to lose his or her job.
“We deserve more from our leaders than to have threats to our safety be covered up and swept under the rug,” said South Carolina Solid, which is listed as the organizer of an online petition posted to Change.org.
One Change.org user wrote: “Hanging a noose, which was so often used to hang African Americans in the South for so called infractions, big or small, has no place at all in private or public settings.”
Not everyone had the same perspective.
“This is getting silly,” one person wrote on a Facebook page that shared the WCBD story. “I know how to tie knots. Nooses included. If I tie my charger cord like this, and I do as it’s so long, will I be plastered and smeared over a frigging knot?”
Another person commented: “So anything the NAACP doesn’t like is a racist symbol?”
The Georgetown NAACP chapter is among the groups wanting the involved employees to be fired and is planning to address the noose incident Wednesday in a news conference.
“The NAACP will be a voice for concerned citizens who share their concerns regarding the noose situation,” the group wrote on Facebook.
The apparent noose comes after similar recent discoveries.
In Georgia, sandwich company Jimmy John’s fired workers after video showed them fashioning bread dough into an apparent noose, McClatchy News reported last month.
And earlier this year, the FBI launched an investigation into a rope found in the garage of Black NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace. The rope had been there for months, and the case wasn’t considered a hate crime, McClatchy News reported.
This story was originally published August 10, 2020 at 1:34 PM.
