Amazon has closed a massive construction site for a new warehouse in Connecticut after a seventh noose was found there.
The latest noose was found hanging from a beam during a lunch break on Wednesday, Windsor Police Chief Donald Melanson said at a press conference. "We are working on it, we do have some leads in this latest incident," Melanson said.
The first noose at the Windsor site was found on April 27, the Hartford Courant reports. Windsor is just north of Hartford, the state capital.
Carlos Best, a foreman and iron worker on the site, said he'd had to fire a worker for making racist remarks. "I did witness Confederate flags on people's hats, on the back of their cars. I personally heard racial remarks," he said during a press conference Thursday.
"It was a daily thing out here on the job that you had to deal with," Best said. "This is not the only construction site that these things occur on, and it has to stop sooner or later."
Scot X. Esdaile, president of the Connecticut NAACP, said at the press conference the community is undaunted by the latest incident.
"They're not gonna push us back," Esdaile said. "We're gonna push them back."
Amazon and the site's contractor RC Andersen of Fairfield, N.J., and property developer Scannell Properties of Indianapolis are collectively offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the identification of the culprits.
"We continue to be deeply disturbed by the incidents happening at the construction site in Windsor and have ordered its shut down until necessary security measures can be put in place," Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement. "Hate, racism or discrimination have no place in our society and are certainly not tolerated by Amazon — whether at a site under construction like this one, or at one that we operate."
The FBI is also lending resources and support to the Windsor Police Department's investigation.
"The implications of a hanging noose anywhere are unacceptable and will always generate the appropriate investigative response. We stand united with all of our law enforcement partners across the state in rooting out and applying the rule of law to any individual or group perpetuating hateful ideology and intimidation in our communities," David Sundberg, the New Haven FBI field office special agent in charge, said in a statement.
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