Sheriff’s Deputies Fired For Neo-Nazi Beliefs: ‘Hitler Did Nothing Wrong’
Two employees of the sheriff’s office of Spalding County, Georgia have been fired after an anti-fascist group exposed their neo-Nazi and racist beliefs, Newsweek reported.
Howard Costner and Jesse Jones were fired after online comments made by the two expressing far-right views came to light. “I view racism as normal,” Costner commented on YouTube. “Just read the definition of racism and it’s not a bad thing,” he added.
Costner also reportedly wrote that he considers Nazis “normal everyday people” and described George Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party, as someone he “respects.” He also posted a photo on Facebook of a Nazi flag hanging on his bedroom wall.
Similarly, Jones’s profile on his gaming platform has the motto “Hitler did nothing wrong.” Another profile of his uses a picture of Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who murdered nine black people at a church in Charlestown, South Carolina, in 2015, as its picture.
Sheriff Darrell Dix said the jailers’ actions do not fit what they want to “represent to the community” and what they want “to represent as an agency.”
However, Dix also said that there was “no use of force, nothing where there were claims of him violating people’s civil rights or mistreating (people).”
Contact Aisha Tahir at tahir@forward.com or on Twitter, @aishatahir
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