Volunteer Fire Chief Apologizes For Racist Rant About Black People And Police
A South Carolina volunteer fire chief is receiving backlash for a racist and offensive post he made on Facebook.
According to WSOC TV, Butch Ghent’s post read, “Dear police, Stop responding to these Black neighborhoods. They will eventually kill each other, and the fake news won’t have a story.”
Ghent is the chief at the McDonald Green Volunteer Fire Department, which is south of the city of Lancaster.
Wayne Murray, the head of the NAACP in Lancaster County, told the news station that a public servant shouldn’t have such views while also serving their community during a time of an emergency.
“I wonder how long it’s gonna take them to get to my house to put out the fire,” Murray said. “When we have our leaders bringing racism into the city, we have a serious problem.”
After WSOC TV visited Ghent’s house twice, he apologized for the racist post.
“Sometimes you just do stupid stuff, and I did a stupid thing,” Ghent said, revealing he was angry over Ma’Khia Bryant’s killing by Columbus, Ohio police last week and the reaction to it.
“I just want to apologize to the Black community of Lancaster and all the areas that might have read this thing,” he told the news station. “I didn’t mean it as an attack on them, but I was after the news media more than anything else.”
Additionally, Ghent said he would resign if he was asked to. WSOC TV has also learned that the department is putting him on leave for two weeks while they perform an internal investigation.
