A Georgia sheriff’s office employee was fired Wednesday after cellphone video surfaced of the man confronting a Spanish-speaking woman inside a Savannah McDonald’s.
In the video originally shared on Twitter, former Chatham County Sheriff's Office jail maintenance mechanic Walter Browning tells the 19-year-old woman and her friends to "speak English." He also suggested the woman came to the United States on a boat.
His comments were littered with profanities. It’s unclear how the confrontation in the dining area began.
“You’re a racist,” Cristina Riofrio, a second-year student at Savannah College of Art and Design, tells the man. “And you shouldn’t be proud of that. You shouldn’t be.”
Browning replies, “Yes, sure am. That’s me.”
After the exchange Saturday night, McDonald’s employees asked Browning to leave the restaurant. In the days that followed, Riofrio’s minute-long video was retweeted more than 15,000 times.
Chatham County Sheriff John Wilcher said his office was made aware of the video about 9 a.m. Wednesday. Browning was fired within the hour at the close of an internal investigation, the sheriff said Thursday during a news conference.
“It is just something that I will not tolerate,” he said, adding, “You’ve got to put your brain in gear before you put your mouth in gear.”
Browning had been employed with the sheriff’s office for three years as a building engineer. While he was not tasked with law enforcement duties, Browning was mandated to undergo racial bias training, according to Gary Taylor, the recruitment and training director for the sheriff’s office.
“The comments of this employee do not reflect the mission and the vision and the core values of this organization, and what the sheriff and the chief deputy stand for,” Taylor said. “That’s why he is no longer employed here.”
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