BELLE CHASSE, La. — A Plaquemines Parish deputy has been fired for his affiliation with a reported hate group.
Plaquemines Parish Sheriff Gerald Turlich said in a news release that the sheriff’s office received a complaint on Aug. 8 about Deputy Brian Green’s affiliation with the Proud Boys, a men-only group self-described as “Western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.”
Although Green had never been the subject of a complaint or disciplinary action before Aug. 8, Green was fired because he used his sheriff’s office uniform to promote the Proud Boys views, “whose values are contradictory to the values and the vision of the PPSO.”
The social media policy at the sheriff’s office prohibits social media activity that “negatively affects the public perception of the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff’s Office” or engages in speech “that would reasonably be considered reckless or irresponsible.”
“Green’s affiliation and promotion of the organization known as the Proud Boys in uniform inevitably affected the public trust bestowed upon him and questioned the values of the PPSO,” Turlich said.
The Proud Boys have clashed violently at protests across the country and are classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group has dismissed that label.
“Like Archie Bunker, we long for the days when ‘girls were girls and men were men,” the Proud Boys website says. “This wasn’t controversial even twenty years ago, but being proud of Western culture today is like being a crippled, black, lesbian communist in 1953.”