Noose reported at TECO plant

APOLLO BEACH -- When Tampa Electric Co. officials learned of a noose found dangling at their plant Friday from a piece of scaffold, they took the report seriously.

The TECO officials addressed their own workers and hundreds of subcontractors working on a $330-million expansion at the power plant on Big Bend Road. Had someone fashioned a noose to send a threatening message? Officials thought so at first.

"We made sure that it was clearly communicated that this is completely inappropriate behavior and we will not tolerate that as a company," TECO spokesman Rick Morera said.

No one stepped forward to say why they made the noose, long a symbol of racial division. Nor did any victims come forward to say they had been harassed, Morera said.

TECO reconsidered the idea that the rope had been intended as a hangman's noose.

"It appears as though it could have been some slip-knot type of tie," Morera said. "Somebody could have been hanging some equipment of some type from it."

Despite initially warning all workers against nooses, TECO never reported the incident to law enforcement.

Andrew Meacham, Times staff writer