A man who hung an effigy of Kentucky’s governor from a tree has been fired
The man who hung an effigy of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear on a tree outside the Kentucky state Capitol on Sunday, has been fired from his job.
Terry Bush confirmed to CNN that he lost his job at the Neil Huffman Auto Group on Tuesday.
“My First Amendment was violated while I was doing a First Amendment act,” Bush said, but added that he would not be able to comment further.
Shannon Huffman, human resources manager at the Neil Huffman Auto Group, released a statement Tuesday saying, “The Neil Huffman Auto Group does not condone threats of violence in any form, whether they be a call to action or an implied threat.
Following an internal investigation on this matter, the employee was terminated. There is no place for hate or intolerance at any of our dealerships.”
What happened?
Sunday’s protest was advertised on Facebook as a Patriot Day Rally to exercise Second Amendment rights.
As the rally was winding down, someone drove up in a truck and pulled the effigy of Beshear out of a bag and hung it on a tree, Gerry Seavo James told CNN.
The effigy had a note around its neck with the Latin phrase “sic semper tyrannis,” which roughly translates to “thus always to tyrants.” Generally attributed to Brutus, the phrase was shouted by the assassin John Wilkes Booth when he shot President Abraham Lincoln and is also the state motto of Virginia.
After the effigy was hung from a tree another man came up and cut it down, James said.
“There’s a gentleman that came up. He was pretty upset about it, and he cut it down. And he was like this has no place at this rally. We’re trying to be peaceful,” James said.
The governor’s response
When asked Wednesday about Bush losing his job, Gov. Beshear said he didn’t have a comment, but said “you don’t simply, in the moment, make a dummy with somebody’s face on it, and hang it up. And you don’t just, in the moment, march a group over to stand on somebody’s porch on the other side of the windowpane from where their kids play and shout for them to come out.”
“Now I know both of those things that have happened, have been ways to create fear and show hate to numerous other people in America. And I don’t want to claim that I know how that history feels, but I think all of us would say that different decisions have consequences. And I would hope that we would all make better decisions like that, as we move forward,” Beshear added.
