Police probing racism at South Elgin job site

In the latest case of suburban racism reminiscent of the Jena 6 controversy in Louisiana, someone last week hung a noose from the workspace of a black construction worker at a Home Depot store being built in South Elgin, store officials confirmed today.

And on Monday, someone spray painted the N-word in white letters on a desk inside the same store, Police Chief Chris Merritt said Tuesday afternoon.

Police are looking into both incidents to determine if they were hate crimes, Merritt said.

"We're just learning of both of them, and so we're investigating the criminal defacement to see if there's a bigger problem with that," Merritt said.

According to a police report, officers arrived at the store on Randall Road Monday morning after a construction worker called to report the graffiti.

At that point that officers learned about the noose, which had been made a week earlier out of "foam-type material," Merritt said.

The Home Depot is conducting its own inquiry into the matter that involves workers from FH Martin Constructors, said Jennifer King, a spokeswoman for Home Depot.

"The Home Depot maintains a zero tolerance policy against discrimination and harassment," King said in a statement. "The Home Depot ... has told the general contractor to notify all its personnel involved in building the store that this behavior is unacceptable and an extreme violation of our policies."

Warren, Mich.-based FH Martin, the general contractor on the Home Depot project, is cooperating with the investigations and will "prosecute anyone to the full extent of the law if anyone's found who perpetrated any of the incidents," said Joe Wright, the project's construction manager.

"We do not condone any of that kind of behavior, just as Home Depot does not," Wright said.

The Elgin Chapter of the NAACP has begun its own investigation. The noose incident inspired another construction worker to come forward and contact the group to get involved, said Temi Latinwo, the chapter's president.

The Home Depot case is certainly not the first case with similarities to the Jena 6 controversy last month.

On Monday, a black family in Lombard found racial slurs painted on their house.

Last month, police arrested Curtis Hiett, a white student from Warren Township High School, after they said he made racially charged comments about black people during school hours.

He was charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct and is due to appear in Lake County court on Oct. 23.

Hiett, 17, of Gurnee also drove around with a noose hanging from his rear-view mirror and a Confederate Flag flying inside his car, Gurnee police said.

NAACP's Latinwo says these are copycat incidents linked to events surrounding a controversy that touched off in Louisiana after students hung nooses from a tree on the Jena High School campus.

The nooses were hung shortly after black students sat under the tree. Afterward, six black boys, now called the Jena six, were charged with beating up a white student.

Demonstrators in support of the black teens descended on the small town in late September, saying the arrests and the subsequent charges were excessive and reeked of racism.

"The fact that these incidents are being replayed in many communities since then has given those who still harbor racism in their hearts a way to let it be known," Latinwo said via e-mail.

But Police Chief Merritt wasn't sure if recent activities were related to events surrounding the Jena six.

"I wish I could put some rationale behind why somebody would act this stupid," he said. "But ignorant people are ignorant people."