Clermont clinic owner: ‘Why so much hate?’
Noose hung outside black physician’s business
As Clermont police search for a suspect who hung a noose outside a pain relief clinic owned by a Black physician, the clinic's owner and staff are grappling with the targeted expression of hate in what they perceived as a safe community.
“It's kind of unreal, to be honest with you,” said Dr. Daniel Saint-Elie, owner of Painalgia Relief Center. “These are things that I've read about. I'm 40 years old, and I've never heard anybody in my immediate circle experience such a thing.”
Staff found the noose on a tree outside the clinic at 240 Mohawk Road around 8 a.m. and sent Saint-Elie photos. He contacted the Clermont Police Department, who promptly arrived at the clinic and began investigating, he said.
Saint-Elie, who is Black, said he believed the noose was hung as a “target against the clinic” and himself. It was deliberately tied onto the tree, he said.
“Somebody took care [and] attention to place that in the tree,” Saint-Elie said.
Clermont Police Department spokesman Lt. Shane Strickland said the agency was investigating the incident along with state and federal law enforcement officials as a hate crime. Clermont PD did not provide an incident report Monday night.
“Words cannot express the City of Clermont's disappointment and disgust over this apparent hate crime,” said Clermont police Chief Charles Broadway. “We are deploying all possible resources to hold those involved in this apparent crime accountable.”
Though the noose was removed by the time SaintElie arrived at the clinic, he said his staff was still shaken by its presence.
One of his employees, a Black woman from the United Kingdom, was unaware of the noose's history as a hate symbol in the United States.
“She had never, ever experienced something like that. She didn't even know the implication of what that meant,” Saint-Elie said. “… Nothing prepares you for something like this.”
He and his staff are still processing the incident, and they have had talks about safety at the clinic going forward.
“They're saddened, ‘Why so much hate?' We've been in this community for about three years providing pain management care … We're here as humble servants for this community, and for somebody to do something like that and disrupting the service that we're providing to this community is just disheartening.” Saint-Elie said.
He said the clinic does not have external security cameras because he believed the area was safe, so there is no footage of the suspect or suspects involved.
“Today has proven [to] us that it's not as safe as we think it is. … Until today, I felt safe staying in the office very late, just catching up on some work, and now this is a freedom that I no longer have,” Saint-Elie said.