New Haven Independent

Greater New Haven NAACP President James Rawlings (pictured) made the announcement Thursday with construction officials outside the work site of Yale New-Haven Hospital’s Smilow Cancer Center, where workmen could be spotted climbing high steel beams in the chilling morning wind.

In a brief press conference, Rawlings denounced the recent spate of noose-droppings around the nation and in the state. Some have occurred Turner Construction sites: Two nooses were discovered at the end of last year by Turner Construction workers at the Blue Back Square development in West Hartford; nine were found at a Turner Construction site in Stamford earlier in the year. Police have said the nooses were intended to target a particular subcontractor. At the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London last year, a cadet found a noose in her belongings, then a woman who came in to conduct race-relations training at the Academy found another one left for her.

Leaving nooses, which recall the lynching of African-Americans our nation’s not-too-distant past, is a hate crime that “cannot be tolerated,” Rawlings said.

No nooses have been left in New Haven of late, but Rawlings wanted to take a preventive measure. “There haven’t been any problems here,” he explained, “and we don’t want any.”

The NAACP and Turner presented a “Safe Workplace Pact,” announcing zero tolerance for “any act which creates a hostile and unsafe work environment” on all Turner construction sites in the greater New Haven area, including the Smilow site. Perpetrators of hate crimes on the work site will be criminally prosecuted, the pact vowed.

Rusty Hirst, a vice president at Turner, said the company already has a “zero tolerance” policy, but was happy to take this “proactive measure.”

Meanwhile, Yale-New Haven spokesman Vin Petrini was all smiles in announcing: that the Smilow Cancer Center construction is “on schedule,” due to be complete by early 2010.