A local Fort Collins resident was asked to take down a Halloween display after some Colorado State University students called it offensive and racist, saying it resembled a black person hanging from a noose.

A photo of the Halloween display obtained by KUSA shows a ghost with a black wig dangling from the rafters of a house nearby CSU’s campus, looking similar to the main character in the popular horror film The Ring.

“It hurt to see it and it made us like upset and it was just something we didn’t want to happen.”

Nonetheless, some students found the display to be racist, interpreting the Halloween decoration as a black woman being hanged.

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“It almost, I got like a horrible feeling in my stomach that someone would put a hanging black woman across the street from our campus,” student Sunnique Cortez told 12 News. “I thought about what message that was sending to black families to come up here with their black child.”

Another student, Kaya Rudolph, was similarly frustrated, arguing that the display was put up with poor timing since several families were traveling to campus for homecoming.

“It was just like, it hurt to see it and it made us like upset and it was just something we didn’t want to happen,” she complained. “We didn’t want it to happen. We didn’t want people to see that. We didn’t want them to get caught-off-guard like we were.”

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Local police initially refused to respond to the situation, since there was no apparent threat nor anything illegal about the decoration, but after receiving several phone calls, officers approached the homeowner, who they said was surprised that the decoration was seen as offensive but agreed to take it down.

“I just think it’s important to have a conversation about why it’s offensive to African Americans or minorities around Fort Collins because, you know, we’re not the majority here,” Cortez remarked.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @AGockowski