Two Transportation Security Administration officers were placed on leave for putting up a noose in a baggage screening area at Miami International Airport, government sources said.
The agency announced the suspensions in a statement Tuesday saying that an “offensive display” was discovered in an area not accessible to the public.
“The display was immediately removed and an investigation was launched into who was responsible for the unacceptable behavior,” the TSA statement read.
“TSA does not tolerate racist or offensive behavior and those found responsible will be held accountable for their actions,” the agency said.
The officers were placed on leave as the incident is investigated, the TSA said. Their identities were not revealed.
In recent months there have been a number of workers reporting finding racist objects at their places of employment.
In March, more than a dozen black workers at a UPS distribution center in Maumee, Ohio, sued the distributor and several employees after finding nooses and Confederate flags in the office.
An African American man who works as a quality inspector at Boeing’s plant in North Charleston, South Carolina, sued the company in June after he said his white co-workers hung a noose above his desk.
And in a similar incident, five educators at Summerwind Elementary School in Palmdale, California, were suspended in May after a photo showed four teachers posing with a rope fashioned into a noose.
The teachers as well as the school’s principal, who emailed the photo to Summerwind staff, were placed on administrative leave as the incident was investigated, the district superintendent said.
