Two men who mocked Floyd’s killing are fired by employers

The protest in the southern New Jersey township was similar to those that have unfolded across the United States since George Floyd was killed in police custody: About 70 people gathered to rally against police brutality and systemic racism.

But as the diverse group marched along in Franklin Township Monday, waving signs and chanting slogans in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, it was met by several white men who had gathered near a sign that said “All Lives Matter” and in front of a pickup truck draped with an American flag and a pro-Trump sign.

One of the men yelled at the marchers angrily while kneeling on the neck of another who was facedown on the ground — an apparent attempt to mock the killing of Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis after a white officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

By Tuesday, the state’s Department of Corrections said it had suspended one of its employees after confirming that he was among the group that taunted and tried to upset the protesters. Hours later, FedEx confirmed that one of its employees had also taken part in the counterprotest and had been fired as a result.

Widespread condemnation of the scene, which was captured on video, came quickly.

The mayor and the police chief in Franklin Township issued a statement calling the episode “revolting” and saying that it had left them “appalled and saddened.”

One man in the group, who can be seen on video filming the protesters, works as a correction officer and has been suspended pending a “thorough and expedited investigation,” prison officials said.

“We have been made aware that one of our officers from Bayside State Prison participated in the filming of a hateful and disappointing video that mocked the killing of George Floyd,” the Corrections Department said in a statement.

The department did not identify the officer, but officials said he was a senior corrections police officer who joined the Corrections Department in March 2002 and worked at a youth detention facility in Bordentown until January 2019, when he moved to the Bayside prison in Leesburg.

The union that represents New Jersey’s 6,000 corrections officers, PBA Local 105, said in a statement under “no circumstance do we condone nor will we ever tolerate actions and expressions of discrimination, harassment and hatred” of the sort engaged in by the counterprotesters.

And FedEx wasted no time in announcing that its employee had been fired.

“We do not tolerate the kind of appalling and offensive behavior depicted in this video,” the company said in a statement.