A Philadelphia family court supervisor lost his job after a video surfaced of him tearing down Black Lives Matter signs over the weekend and saying he doesn’t care about black lives.
Michael Henkel was seen taking signs down at a South Philadelphia park in since-removed footage shared over the weekend. In the video, a woman could be heard yelling out to him, “Black lives matter.”
“Not to me, they don’t,” he responded.
The 34-second video was posted on a woman’s Facebook page on Sunday afternoon and attracted over 800 comments and 2,000 shares by Monday, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The post was removed from public view on Monday afternoon, however.
“The Court takes the incident very seriously and believes Mr. Henkel’s behavior as shown in the video is egregious and totally unacceptable for an employee of the Courts,” the First Judicial District, or Philadelphia court system, said in a statement.
Henkel has not commented on the incident.
Black Lives Matter protests spread across the country following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody last month. Demonstrations have heightened the conversation about racial injustice and police brutality, calling for reforms to fix policing as its known.
