BALTIMORE (AP) -- The Baltimore Fire Department has suspended a paramedic apprentice who admitted placing a threatening note and a rope shaped like a noose inside a firehouse.

Fire officials say the paramedic, Gary Maynard, is the one who initially reported finding the note and the rope.

Fire department spokesman Kevin Cartwright says Maynard confessed to city police that he left the note and the rope. A statement from Fire Chief William Goodwin says Maynard's scheme was "meant to create the perception that members within our department were acting in a discriminatory and unprofessional manner."

The note was believed to refer to a cheating scandal involving black firefighters. Maynard, who is black, has not yet been charged with any crime.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

BALTIMORE (AP) -- A noose and a note found on the floor of a fire station are being investigated by fire and police officials, a Baltimore fire official said Wednesday.

Two paramedics, one white and one black, found the noose and letter after returning to their firehouse about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, fire department spokesman Kevin Cartwright said.

The note read, "We can't hang the cheaters but we can hang the failures," said Henry Burris, the president of the Vulcan Blazers, a black firefighters group.

The note also had a drawing of a stick figure hanging from a noose and an apparent reference to a promotional exam given to firefighters.

After reading the note, the paramedics contacted the officer in charge of the station, Cartwright said.

"Of course, the connotation would suggest a racial hate crime, so police did come to the station, and they as well are performing an investigation," Cartwright said.

In a written statement, Mayor Sheila Dixon said she was outraged by what she called a "deplorable act of hatred and intimidation."

Earlier this month, Burris' group and the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP called on the mayor to disclose the results of a probe into whether some firefighters cheated on city fire department promotional exams over the summer. Burris said the probe, begun in July, has affected the careers and reputations of at least six black firefighters who scored at the top of exams for new captain and lieutenant positions.

In early July, the city's two fire unions expressed concerns that the exams for lieutenants and captains may have been leaked, prompting Dixon to order an independent investigation by the city's inspector general. The Vulcan Blazers dismissed the allegations as "racially motivated," which the unions have denied.

On Wednesday, Burris said he was concerned about the escalation of racial issues in the department.

"The fire department must take a stand against this type of behavior. It may not come from the chief of the fire department, but the mayor but must intervene," Burris said. "This cannot exist in a vacuum. There must be a culture that allows this to happen."

Marvin "Doc" Cheatham, president of the NAACP's Baltimore branch, said the noose and the note were evidently intended as message about the testing investigation, and called again for the results of the probe to be released.

"We're going to demand that this be handled as a hate crime," Cheatham said. "This thing really needs to end here in Baltimore city."

Stephan G. Fugate, the head of the city's fire union, defended the firefighters at the station.

"They're jumping to conclusions and assuming it was some racially heinous incident targeting" one of the medical technicians, Fugate told The (Baltimore) Sun. "I think everyone needs to back off and let the investigation take its course."

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)