LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. — A volunteer fire chief in Lancaster County is receiving criticism for an offensive, racially charged post he made on Facebook.
The Facebook post from Butch Ghent 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, south of Lancaster.
Wayne Murray leads the NAACP in Lancaster County. His first reaction was to question how a public servant can have such views and serve the community in 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.”
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Murray has spoken with Lancaster County Administrator Steve Willis and members of the county council about the post.
Channel 9 went to Ghent’s house twice on Tuesday. On the second visit, Ghent was home and apologized for the post.
“Sometimes you just do stupid stuff, and I did a stupid thing,” Ghent said.
When asked why he wrote the post, Ghent said he got angry over news reports about the Columbus, Ohio officer who shot and killed a teenage girl who was about to stab another girl with a knife.
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He said he’s tired of the media disrespecting police officers but said his word choice was “poor.”
“I just want to apologize to the Black community of Lancaster and all the areas that might have read this thing. I didn’t mean it as an attack on them, but I was after the news media more than anything else,” he said.
The Lancaster County government gave Channel 9 a statement Tuesday afternoon:
“On Monday April 26, Lancaster County became aware of an offensive social media post by a volunteer firefighter serving an independent fire department. Lancaster County Council and Lancaster County strongly condemn the social media post as its contents are contrary to the values and beliefs of Lancaster County government. The County has received questions about potential disciplinary or personnel action. Volunteer firefighters in Lancaster County are not employees or volunteers of Lancaster County but instead are members of their independent volunteer fire departments. Accordingly, the county cannot take any disciplinary action. However, Lancaster County and County Council take this matter very seriously and urge the fire department to address the matter.”
The McDonald Green Volunteer Fire Department could vote Ghent out as chief. He has served there as chief for 21 years.
“If they want me to, if they ask me to resign, I’ll resign,” he said.
Ghent also told Channel 9 that he’s writing a letter of apology and will post it on social media and send it to county leaders. He said he tried several times to take down the offensive Facebook post, but he said it keeps popping back up.
He said he’s also deactivated his Facebook account.
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April 28, 2021 at 03:26PM
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‘I did a stupid thing’: Volunteer fire chief apologizes for racially charged social media post - WSOC Charlotte
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