A UPS employee who left a racist comment on a local news station’s Facebook page was terminated after 25 years on the job.
Gwendolyn Carder wrote the racist comment under a story posted by Channel 2 Action News on its Facebook page.
Carder was among hundreds of users responding to a post about Taylor Saulters, a former Athens-Clarke County cop who ran over a fleeing suspect on Friday.
Saulters was fired on Saturday after his superiors reviewed video of the June 1st chase that ended with Saulters ramming Timmy Patmon, 23, from behind with his patrol unit.
Saulters is white and Patmon is black.
Saulters was quickly hired by a Sheriff’s department in a neighboring County, and he was back at work by Monday.
Carder wrote:
“Thugs deserve it. If a family member so be it. However, I do no have any thugs in my family that I am aware of. Seems to be people of color who are the problem.”
Multiple Facebook users, including a neighbor of Carder’s, alerted Channel 2 Action News to the racist comment.
“She made a racist statement,” Carder’s neighbor Marshea Washington said. “It does bother me that she would generalize us and make us as if we are thugs, because I’m not raising thugs, and I’m raising three African sons.”
Channel 2 contacted a spokesman for United Parcel Service Inc. who confirmed that Carder no longer worked out of the UPS local center off Fulton Industrial Boulevard.
UPS released a statement to Channel 2:
“UPS has no tolerance for hate, bigotry or prejudice. The company embraces diversity and inclusion as one of its core values. The comments Ms. Carder shared in response to WSB-TV’s story do not reflect UPS’s values or culture.”
“That was pretty bold, and now she has to deal with the consequences of it,” Washington told Channel 2 Action News.
