Florida official suspended after saying entire city of Orlando ‘should be levelled’
Assistant state attorney Kenneth Lewis wrote on Facebook that the city was a ‘melting pot of third world miscreants’ just hours after the mass shooting
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A Florida state official has been suspended after he wrote a negative rant on Facebook about Orlando and its residents just hours after 49 people were killed in a gay nightclub.
Assistant state attorney Kenneth Lewis said: “Downtown Orlando has no bottom. The entire city should be leveled.”
The Pulse nightclub, targeted by a lone gunman who pledged allegiance to Isis last Saturday evening, is situated in downtown Orlando.
“It is a melting pot of 3rd world miscreants and ghetto thugs. It is void of culture,” Mr Lewis said in the social media post, which has since been deleted.
“If you live down there you do it at your own risk and at your own peril. If you go down there after dark there is seriously something wrong with you,” added Mr Lewis.
The Ninth Judicial Circuit's office, where Mr Lewis worked, suspended him as he violated their social media policy, spokeswoman Angela Starke told NBC affiliated news channel WESH.
In the second post, he wrote, “All Orlando nightclubs should be permanently closed. With our without random gunmen they are zoos,; utter cesspools of debauchery," as reported by the Orlando Sentinel.
Mr Lewis could not be immediately reached for comment.
The social media policy at the attorney's office was put in place in 2014 after Mr Lewis made other controversial comments on Facebook that year.
“Happy Mother's Day to all the crack hoes out there. It's never too late to turn it around, tie your tubes, clean up your life and make difference to someone out there that deserves a better mother,” he wrote in 2014.
The remark followed a post with a picture of supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayer with a caption that read: “Reason enough why no country should ever engage in the practice of Affirmative Action again. This could be the result. Where would she be if she didn't hit the quota lottery? Here's a hint: 'Would you like to supersize that sir?’”
The prosecutor was temporarily reassigned and made to attend sensitivity training after the incident.
He apologized for both posts, according to the Associated Press, claiming he thought they would only be available to his Facebook friends.
This week two active duty marines faced disciplinary action after they posted a picture on Facebook of one of them posing with a gun alongside the caption: “Coming to a gay bar near you!“
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