SANTA ANA – A black noose was hung this week from the door of a gay-rights organization here, and the worker who found it now plans to file a formal complaint about how police responded.

Mel Distel found the cloth noose on Thursday evening on the door to Equality California’s office in south Santa Ana. She called police and says one of the officers who responded dismissed the noose as a string on the door and told her: Sometimes, you just have to live with being a victim.

Santa Ana Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna declined to comment on Distel’s account. But he said the department is treating the case as a possible terrorist threat to real property, a misdemeanor. It’s been assigned to investigators who handle crimes against persons.

The noose “was shocking,” Distel said Friday. “It struck me as something that could escalate, something that was definitely meant to be hurtful.”

Distel, a phone-bank trainer at Equality California, said she “absolutely” plans to file a complaint about the police response. The organization also said it intends to file a complaint and to demand that police discipline the officer involved.

“This is an outrageous, despicable attempt to intimidate the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community just a few days before the election, but we will not be silenced,” Equality California’s Executive Director, Geoff Kors, said in a prepared statement.

Equality California works out of an unmarked office in a strip mall on Grand Avenue, but Distel said it had a “big, gay rainbow flag” outside. The office has no surveillance cameras.

Distel found the noose when she arrived at the office shortly before 6 p.m. Thursday to unlock the doors for campaign workers. The office had nine volunteers working the phones Thursday on behalf of Assembly candidate Melissa Fox.

In a statement, Fox described the hanging of the noose as a “despicable and hateful act, clearly intended to threaten and intimidate Equality California and other supporters of marriage equality from exercising our Constitutional rights to free speech and free association.”

She pointed out that the noose is a historic symbol of lynching, and said it was no coincidence that it was left just days before Election Day on Tuesday.

Contact the writer: 714-704-3777 or dirving@ocregister.com