Home Depot modifies rope sales after nooses found in stores
Spools in pre-cut lengths most commonly requested will be sold
Home Depot is modifying the way it sells rope after discovering that people were making nooses out of the spooled rope in some of its stores.
The home improvement retailer has taken away spools of rope and is instead selling pre-cut rope in lengths that are most commonly sold, Home Depot spokesperson Margaret Smith told FOX Business.
"Unfortunately, we’ve had some instances where spooled rope was used to create hate symbols and we’re not going to tolerate it," Smith said in a statement. "Out of an abundance of caution, we temporarily removed spooled rope from our aisles."
A shopper wearing a facemask pushes her cart while people wait in line to enter The Home Depot in Marina Del Rey, California on May 22, 2020. (Photo by CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images)
People buy rope for projects ranging from gardening to animal traps to building projects.
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One Twitter user took a photo of a paper notice on a Home Depot shelf informing customers that spooled rope was not currently available.
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"They stopped selling rope by the yard at my local Home Depot because someone supposedly made a noose," the user wrote.
It's not the first time nooses have been found in Home Depot stores; a pair of sisters from Delaware reported that they had discovered a noose in one store in July 2019.
The most recent incidents, however, follow weeks of protests and conversations about race relations in the U.S. after a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on the neck of a black man named George Floyd, who subsequently died in police custody.
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Floyd's death sparked national outrage, and the protests that followed have prompted big companies and small businesses alike to make changes to their business models to become more inclusive.
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