The Seattle Fire Department wrapped up an investigation into a possible noose found in February 2022 inside Seattle Fire Station 24, which is located near Bitter Lake in North Seattle, but investigators didn’t uncover who knotted the rope, and knot experts within the department said it technically wasn’t a hangman’s noose.

This outcome marks three incidents in as many years where something seemingly racist happened at the department and an investigation led to no culprit and no finding of any malicious intent. 

Investigators also did not find anyone responsible after a Seattle Fire Department (SFD) firefighter reported finding a noose in 2020 at Fire Station 17, located in the University District. 

When a firefighter noticed Fire Station 24’s old racist patch in the station’s 2020 yearbook, which they distributed at the start of 2022 for some reason, investigators attributed the incident to a proofreading error, according to an email from Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins to SFD staff in October 2022. 

In that email, Scoggins also announced the results of the investigation into the reported noose found at Fire Station 24. 

Though it would be easy to “move forward as though no real harm had been done,” Scoggins wrote in the email, “it would dismiss the very real impact that members of our fire department family experienced.” He then thanked the firefighters who reported both the rope and the racist patch. 

As a result of the incidents, the department limited the types of knots Seattle firefighters use and ordered stickers to cover up the racist patch in the yearbooks. Department emails also show SFD deleted the station’s old patch from department files. The patch design used lettering with a sun cross, also known as Odin's Cross, which the Anti Defamation League recognizes as a hate symbol.  

A previous Fire Station 24 fire captain and another firefighter designed the racist patch in 2017, according to the investigation report. 

When a fire department lieutenant brought her concerns to Scoggins about the inclusion of the patch in the 2020 yearbook, the chief told her SFD wasn’t responsible for the yearbook. The fire department conducted a separate inquiry into that incident. 

In the end, investigators who looked into the knotted rope found at Fire Station 24 said that whoever tied the rope used an atypical kind of knot and rope. However, investigators thought someone might have a justifiable reason for making the knot and putting it in the rope cubby, though they didn’t enumerate any reasons. 

Investigators also highlighted the fact that no one within the station could point to another firefighter who might leave a noose around the station either maliciously or as a joke, and no person of color from the station said they felt targeted by the incident. For those reasons, the investigators found that no violation of the City’s personnel rules on discrimination and workplace harassment occurred.