Two white men, one of them a corrections officer, mocked the police killing of George Floyd on Monday by reenacting the scene of Floyd’s death in front of Black Lives Matter protesters.
As of Tuesday night, the corrections officer had been suspended and the other man, a FedEx employee, had been fired.
As the demonstration processed through Franklin Township Monday afternoon, a protester filmed the two men: One knelt with his knee on the other’s neck, simulating Floyd’s killing. “Thin Blue Line” and “Trump” flags were visible in the background.
“Comply with the cops and this wouldn’t have happened!” the man kneeling with his knee on the other’s neck shouted at protesters.
Trump supporters are disgusting. These Franklinville, NJ Trump supporters mockingly re-enacted the George Floyd murder. This needs to go viral! Who is this man? pic.twitter.com/xOOV2F7yNs
— Black Lives Matter (@HKrassenstein) June 8, 2020
Another video, from behind the counterprotesters, shows the man yelling “he should have complied!” for several minutes as the demonstration passed.
At one point, others in the group who do not appear on the camera can be heard saying “black lives matter to no one!” and “police lives matter!”
Their point of view. I don’t have any words, but I have to share this. pic.twitter.com/1i9jlKnd6H
— Daryan (@dfennal16) June 9, 2020
“It automatically brought me to tears,” Daryan Fennal, who organized the march, told NBC10. “The display yesterday showed me that racism is real, racism is alive, it’s right next door to you.”
Based on state employment information about the corrections officer, The Cherry Hill Courier-Post identified the man as Joseph DiMarco.
DiMarco worked at a youth correctional facility from 2002 until 2019 and currently works at Bayside State Prison, a New Jersey Department of Corrections spokesperson told the paper.
Calling the scene “hateful and disappointing,” the department said the individual involved “has been suspended from their post and banned from NJDOC facilities pending a thorough and expedited investigation.” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy called said the incident “repugnant.”
And Franklin Township’s committee and police department, in a joint statement, said they were “appalled and saddened by the revolting actions of certain individuals after Monday’s locally organized peaceful march.”
The FedEx employee involved has not been identified, but the company said Monday that he had been fired, and that the company does “not tolerate the kind of appalling and offensive behavior depicted in this video.”
