FBI Looking Into Noose Incident
by Christine Harvey - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

A Slidell city employee is under investigation by city officials and the FBI after he apparently hung a paper figure from a crudely constructed noose on city property following a disagreement with his African-American supervisor.

The employee, who is white, must attend a Civil Service hearing Tuesday to address his actions, and he faces punishment that could result in losing his job and possibly being booked with a hate crime, said Mayor Ben Morris, who declined to reveal the names of the employee and supervisor until the city's investigation in complete.

The man, a worker in the public operations department, had an altercation with his supervisor in the past week or so that led to an initial Civil Service hearing and a determination that he be suspended without pay for three days, Morris said. The employee then was sent home, he said.

The employee evidently created the makeshift noose -- fashioned from electrical wire hanging in an old work barn on Bayou Lane -- before the hearing took place, Morris said. He used white paper to make a paper doll to hang from the noose, Morris said.