Photo by Dan Henry / The Chattanooga Times Free Press. A mannequin holding a knife stands in Brandi Rapier’s front yard on Monday, July 6, 2015. Police responded to a call of a black figure with a knife on her rural Ooltewah, Tenn., property. this past weekend. A headless black mannequin with a knife in its hand raised eyebrows in a rural corner of Ooltewah today – with neighbors concerned the dummy was meant as a racist gesture – but the mannequin’s creator said he never intended to offend anyone.
Gary “Bubba” Couey pieced together the mannequin a few days ago from pieces he found in an old shed near his home on Smith Lane, he said. He screwed the arms into the shoulders, dressed it in green pants and a black cut-off T-shirt. Because it had no head, Couey slapped an orange wig, helmet and mask on top of the creation, which he named “Buford.”
He propped the mannequin up on the back of a trailer in his front yard and stuck a knife in its hand as a finishing touch. Why?
“It just fit in the hand,” he said, and grinned.
A neighbor alerted the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office and local media to the mannequin this weekend, saying that it was hanging in the front yard and scaring neighbors.