A postal worker in New York has refused to deliver mail at a man’s house after he put up Halloween decorations that he deemed offensive.
Richard Beatty of Brentwood used his homemade decor to decorate his house for Halloween. Specifically, Beatty has placed a noose with a skeleton swinging from it.
After decorating, Beatty was confronted by his mailman. “The postmaster himself came here and knocked on my door and said he was suspending my mail until I took this stuff down, and I said do what you have to do because I’m not taking it down,” Beatty said.
To some, a noose may be a normal decoration, but to others, a noose can trigger a period of time filled with hate.
“It isn’t just a Halloween decoration. He needs to take it down because he’s disrespecting the other African-American neighbors,” said one of his neighbors.
Beatty stated that he didn’t mean it to be “racist” and that he thinks the offense people are taking to it is “ridiculous.”
“It’s not meant to offend anybody. It’s here to be scary, spooky. It’s a graveyard. It’s Halloween. That’s what it’s all about,” Beatty added.
Beatty’s mailman, who is African American, has been replaced by a fill-in mail carrier for the time being.
“Maybe it’s just for decoration, but at the same time you know, in the age that we live in, you never know,” another neighbor added.
Beatty, who is not happy about the mailman’s refusal to deliver mail, has filed a complaint with the post office inspector general.
“I don’t think the post office of all people should be the ones telling me what I can and can’t do on my own property,” Beatty said, expressing his views on the issue.
“If it’s not in danger in any way, I mean, slip and fall on ice or if there was a dog here or something like that, nothing,” Beatty’s neighbor, Stephen Ondrusek said.
“It’s a prop. It’s just a prop, like all these other things,” Beatty finally states, and believes that his mailman is just overly-sensitive to the matter.
Beatty now receives his mail from a mail-ready postman and, despite the postmaster’s request, has refused to remove his Christmas decorations.
Watch the video report: CBS News/Youtube
Sources: OpposingViews, CBS New York
