Over 30 West Virginia Prison Guard Trainees Fired Over Nazi Salute Photo
A photo taken by graduates of a West Virginia prison training course doing the Nazi salute. Image by Office of the Governor of West Virginia
(JTA) — More than 30 West Virginia correctional academy trainees who were seen giving a Nazi salute in a class photo will be fired.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said Monday that he has approved the recommendations from a report by state investigators calling for the dismissal of the correctional officer trainees who participated in the photo. According to the report, the trainees regularly gave the Nazi salute “as a sign of respect” for their instructor in the weeks prior to the release of the photo, The Associated Press reported.
The photo of dozens of participants in the basic training class making the Nazi salute reads “Hail Byrd!” at the top, a reference to their correctional academy instructor, Karrie Byrd.
Two correctional academy trainers and a cadet from the class shown in the picture were fired when the photo came to light in early December.
Byrd told investigators that she was unaware of the “historical or racial implications of the gesture” and said it was “simply a greeting,” according to the report, NBC News reported. Other sources for the report contradicted her statements.
“The investigation disclosed that she encouraged it, reveled in it, and at times reciprocated the gesture,” the report said.
Justice said in a statement Monday that “this act needed to result in real consequences – terminations and dismissals.”
“This kind of behavior will not be tolerated on my watch in any agency of state government,” he said.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
