Memorial Day weekend has arrived and LeBron James is still making the NBA playoffs. Meanwhile, the deputy sheriff in Idaho, whose TikTok video mocking the Los Angeles Lakers star became an internet hit, is without a job. If you think James has the last laugh, remember two things:
- James came out of this episode poorly because of his ownsocial media blunder .
- A law enforcement officer walks away with a half-million dollar gift from a crowd of average Americans who want to make sure the NBA great knows he got out of this episode the wrong way.
LeBron James inspirational story video
. Less than an hour before a jury in Minneapolis indicted Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, a police officer in Columbus, Ohio, fatally stabbed a black teenager who managed to stab another black teenager in a split second. Before the details of the incident revealed that the shooting saved the life of an innocent man, James assumed the worst. He sent a photo of a Columbus police officer to his 50 million Twitter followers and added ominously: YOU KEEP, clearly referring to Chauvin’s sentence. According to the New York Post, 40,000 people retweeted the NBA star before James deleted the message.
At worst, the tweet was an implied threat that could put the officer in danger. At least James decided to be judge and jury, which is more than a little presumptuous for a man who has never had to make a more serious split-second decision than whether to pass or shoot the ball. Enraged, Deputy Nate Sylvester of Bellevue, Idaho, posted a video mocking James on TikTok. In this document, Sylvester states that he has arrived at the scene of the call and asks his dispatcher to contact James to determine what should be done. LeBron, hey, yeah, it’s me again, Sylvester says in a satirical interview. I get to a disturbance and a man is trying to stab another man. What do you want me to do? Okay, well, they’re both black. One tries to stab the other with a knife.
Deadly force is fully justified. So you don’t care if a black man kills another black man. But does it matter to you if a white police officer kills a black man, even if he does it to save the life of another black man? I mean, it doesn’t make much sense, but on the other hand, you’re really good at basketball. So I’ll take your word for it.
Suspension and GoFundMe action
LeBron James reacts to a 3-pointer against the Phoenix Suns during Game 2 of the NBA Western Conference quarterfinals at Phoenix Suns Arena on the 25th. May 2024. | Christian Petersen/Getty Images According to Newsweek, Sylvester’s upload to TikTok had quickly reached millions of views by the end of April. However, it also led to his suspension from work for a period without pay pending an internal investigation.
One of Sylvester’s friends has started a GoFundMe.com campaign to support the congressman. Gannon Ward asked people to donate money because the city where he works as a police officer apparently didn’t find his TikTok as incredibly funny and accurate as the 4.5 million viewers did. Donations exceeded $350,000 in just a few days and caught the attention of the national media. See you on the 29th. By May, just over a month after the campaign started, people had contributed $537,000, despite a petition on
Change.org asking GoFundMe’s administrators to shut down the site and refund the money.
James’ antagonist lost his job
. In a Facebook post on 27. In May, Bellevue Mayor Ned Burns said Sylvester had been fired by his boss for repeated violations of policy, according to the Idaho Statesman. Burns stated that the deputy was on duty the week of the 20th. May has violated several cities and state rules by operating under the last chance agreement stemming from previous rule violations. Burns said the dismissal had nothing to do with his videos on TikTok, the latest of which commented on the shooting outside George Floyd Plaza in Minneapolis on the first anniversary of Floyd’s murder. I can’t imagine a more appropriate way to honor a career criminal than shooting in the middle of a public street, Sylvester says in the video.
Still, the reason for Burns’ announcement is hard to ignore, and reactions from readers of the city’s Facebook page focused heavily on the mayor. Like Sportscasting on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter @ watch sports19 . COMPARED TO: LeBron James’ injury is exaggerated, Skip Bayless and Colin Cowherd were right to call him out
