An Arapahoe County employee was arrested Tuesday and faces a charge of misdemeanor harassment on allegations that he left two nooses — one holding a dead squirrel — where a black county employee could see them.
The suspect, Peter Lee Massaglia, 51, is employed in the weatherization department for Arapahoe County, the same department where David Frazier works.
Frazier said he found a noose placed around the rearview mirror in an unassigned work truck in late September. A month later, he found a dead squirrel with a noose around its neck in a workshed.
Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said he could not talk about specifics of the arrest because the arrest warrant affidavit was sealed by the district attorney’s office.
But Robinson said Massaglia was taken into custody Tuesday and arrested on a $1,750 bond.
Massaglia faces a charge of harassment, a Class 1 misdemeanor punishable by six to 18 months in jail. The charge was bumped from a Class 3 to a Class 1 misdemeanor because the harassment was race-related.
Robinson had assigned three investigators and a sergeant to the case. Each of the 28 employees of the weatherization department, which helps low-income and elderly people weatherize their homes, was questioned.
Authorities were initially looking at several possible suspects, but the case is now focused only on Massaglia, Robinson said.
“One arrest is all we expect,” Robinson said.
Frazier, 41, said Tuesday he suspected Massaglia was the one who placed the nooses.
When Frazier first started in the department a year ago, Frazier said Massaglia told him that “if it was up to me,” he’d put Frazier “on the back of the bus,” a reference to abolished Jim Crow segregation laws.
“He just started comments like that and it got worse and worse,” Frazier said.
Since he reported the incident, Frazier said hardly anyone in department has talked to him. “People wouldn’t even say ‘good morning’ to me,” Frazier said.
Only two of the 28 employees are black, although other ethnic minorities are on the crew, Frazier said. The other black employee, Jay Claiborne, has complained of similar incidents, according to Frazier.
Arapahoe County officials would not comment on what would happen to Massaglia’s job, but in a written statement said: “We do not tolerate the kind of behavior in the workplace with which Peter Massaglia has been charged, and an appropriate personnel action will be taken.”
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com
