A Hate Symbol Long Dormant in City Is Revived

The last five years of city police hate crime reports no doubt contain a litany of ugly, hateful acts that New Yorkers have committed against each other. But they had been free of one of the strongest symbols of racism — the hangman's noose — until this week.

A third noose in the city in less than seven days was found yesterday outside of a Manhattan post office, following an incident involving a professor at Columbia University Teachers College and accusations that a woman in Queens used a noose to threaten her neighbor's children.

The noose incidents follow an episode in Jena, Louisiana in which white high school students hung a noose, a symbol dredged up from the history of lynching in the old South, on a tree outside their school to intimidate black students.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly suggested today that the three noose incidents in the city could have been prompted by the Jena story, which he noted has grabbed international headlines.

"We can speculate that that may be the reason why we're seeing it," he said.

"It's a phenomenon we see quite regularly," he said of copycat crimes. "When something happens we do have to be concerned about other people copying it."

The director of the Brudnick Center on Violence at Northeastern University, Jack Levin, who has written several books about hate crimes, echoed Mr. Kelly's assessment.

"It isn't a surprise," he said of the uptick in hate crimes. "There is a copycat factor in hate crimes. For a period of a few weeks following a well publicized hate incident, there is an increase in similar hate crimes around the country."

Mr. Levin added that hate crimes around the world have risen with the sense of fear that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

"Hate crimes increase when individuals feel threatened," he said. "We simply do not trust those we see as outsiders. Call it fear of terrorism, and it's not limited to attitudes to Muslims or Arabs."

A Yale University political science professor, Donald Green, who also writes about hate crimes, downplayed the copycat theory.

"It sounds like these are three altogether different things," he said of the New York noose incidents, although he added: "It certainly seems like bizarre coincidence."

A fourth event might make it a trend, he said, noting that the wide attention that has been given to the incidents is something that might please the perpetrators.

"It should be noted that those who fantasize about fomenting racial conflict are very interested in the idea of inspiring others," he said

In the latest incident, postal employees on the second floor of the building at 90 Church St., a block from ground zero, noticed a noose hanging from a light pole yesterday at about 1 p.m., police said. The employees told the management company, which removed the noose. They later reported the incident to the local police precinct at about 5:30 p.m.

Mr. Kelly said yesterday that police had no suspects and had not discerned a motive for the crime. As with the noose found at Columbia, the post office noose has been sent to a police lab for DNA analysis.

Today police were watching hours of surveillance video from the Teachers College building where the noose was found outside of the office of Madonna Constantine, a professor who studies racism and race relations. They had viewed three tapes, about 30 hours of footage, by this morning, Mr. Kelly said.

Yesterday, police clashed with Teachers College officials, who had asked investigators to produce a subpoena before they would release the surveillance video, citing privacy laws.

The NYPD Hate Crime Taskforce has added the latest incident to a fast-growing list of investigations. The taskforce is looking into two separate hate crimes at Columbia University this week. Two days after the Teachers College noose incident, a bathroom stall at the campus was found yesterday defaced with a depiction of a man wearing a yarmulke over a swastika.

The taskforce has also been searching for a suspect who spray-painted swastikas across a swath of Brooklyn Heights last month, including the steps of two synagogues.

Deputy Inspector Michael Osgood, the commanding officer of New York's hate crime unit, noted this week that city hate crimes this year have risen 10% compared to the same period last year to slightly more than 200. He also noted that hate crimes are down 60% from 15 years ago.