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March 27, 2012 11:37 AM

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New Orleans police officer Jason Giroir suspended for online comments about Trayvon Martin shooting

By: Crimesider Staff
Topics: Daily Blotter

Outrage grows over Trayvon Martin shooting

17-year-old Trayvon Martin

/ Personal Photo

(CBS/AP) NEW ORLEANS - A New Orleans police officer who was placed on desk duty while under investigation has now been suspended for posting a comment on a local television station's website about the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

Photos: Trayvon Martin

Officer Jason Giroir, a member of the New Orleans Police Department for 13 years, was already under investigation for a March 1 shooting that left one man dead and two officers injured after he made a traffic stop. Giroir made online comments that caused Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas to suspend him without pay.

Giroir identified himself as a New Orleans Police Department employee when he wrote, "Act like a thug die like one!" in response to a WWL-TV article about a rally supporting Martin.

Serpas announced Monday that Giroir has been suspended indefinitely without pay. "To say that I'm angry is an understatement," Serpas said. "I'm furious."

According to the CBS affiliate, Mayor Mitch Landrieu issued a statement "wholeheartedly" supporting Serpas' action against Giroir, and adding, "The people of New Orleans and my administration will not tolerate this reckless and offensive behavior. I condemn his statements in the strongest of terms."

The NOPD's policy on the internet says no employee should post anything that is illegal, or anything that embarrasses, humiliates, discredits, or harms the operation and reputation of the police department.

Complete coverage of the Trayvon Martin case on Crimesider

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Fla. teen Trayvon Martin killed by neighborhood watch volunteer

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by katepub March 28, 2012 10:30 PM EDT

I support NOPD Officer Jason Giroir he is 100% correct. I used to live in Houston TX and I am too familiar with New Orleans and the garbage thugs that run there...both **** holes can burn to the ground as far as I care. Officer Jason Giroir is right, live like a thug and die like one...sorry but it's true. If you have never lived day after day, after day, after day, with punk gang kids stealing from you, attempting to sexually assault you because they think they are entitled, stalking your home and you car, asking you for money (sometimes even telling you "give me money cause you're white ***** and you owe cause you got money) and smokes and harassing your neighborhood. People who have never experienced this will never understand what it's like to wake up to a shoot out between gang members/thugs/wanna be gang members, right in your front yard...as you are watching through your bedroom window, knowing if you call 911 those gang members will find out it was you and make your life a living hell...people who have not lived in the middle of gang violence have no right to judge why a man like NOPD Officer Jason Giroir would be fed up and tell the real truth, this man sees it ever day!

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by sharigb March 29, 2012 12:54 AM EDT: Its a sad situation for you to think it is okay for anyone, especially a police officer, to make a comment like this about a case. "Live like a thug, die like a thug"? Who said he lived like a thug? Obviously you are not aware of the circumstances that are attached to this case. Well here it is, a young UNARMED black boy was profiled, stereotyped, followed, and killed by an ARMED white man in the middle of a gated Florida community who is attempting to call his actions SELF DEFENSE. Now Im not sure but which part of that sounds anything like the ghetto that you DECIDED to live in where you were verbally abused by "garbage thugs". If you were not clear, your personal testimony of Houston does not matter. What matters in the fact that a person, who is sworn in under God and a government that was put into place to protect and serve its people, is using and posting publicly discriminatory responses to the death of an minority child. It does not matter that he was "fed up", it is not his place to disrespect,or use the same stereotypical behavior towards anyone. This is the reason we are in the mess today. Too many people who are ignorant and do not properly understand that matter at hand.
Now run tell that...


by tj29er March 29, 2012 5:40 PM EDT: it's called free speech, no matter how you look at it.


by Jiretee March 31, 2012 11:28 AM EDT: ... but are you going to blame EVERY BLACK PERSON? Bad people, rapists, gang members, thieves, priest who assault children & murderers come in different colors and races but when you have conditioned yourself to hate one race, you will only see that one race as the bad guy.Tragedies and unlawful death is exactly what happens when you use a small % of a population to judge the entire population...this is what happened to Travyon


by sandog1960 March 28, 2012 3:08 PM EDT: Regardless of the ultimate outcome of this, a senseless trajedy could have been avoided had Zimmerman simply listened to the 9-1-1 operator and not continued to follow the young man.; Reply to this comment


by Shelama March 28, 2012 10:23 AM EDT: This is a huge knee-jerk liberal mistake. It's not yet clear what the police investigation found. It's becoming more apparent that what happened may not at all be what the Left has assumed that it would. This nonsense, and Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and almost the entire Left, is setting up a Rodney King reaction when Zimmerman is never charged and never convicted for murder. There's no reason at this point to conclude it was murder, racial or otherwise. An actionable homicide hasn't been ruled out, but there will be no murder charge or conviction. That's guaranteed and knowable.

This kind of crap almost makes Rush Limbaugh look good. I don't listen to Limbaugh but 1000:1 he's making more intelligent, rational and responsible commentary than this pathetic and dangerous nonsense.

And the young, male, black thugs in hoods, who put fear and loathing into both whites and blacks and are a millstone around the necks of all young black males, are laughing about all of this. They could care less. And NOBODY on the Left, or in the Black community (or on the Right) is actually doing anything to actually effect noticeable change in the personal, social and cultural disaster of the single-parent, black underclass. Which disaster was not caused proximately or primarily by racism.; Reply to this comment


by mike4497 March 27, 2012 6:47 PM EDT: too bad travon isn't here to tell his side of th story. and for the police officer who made that commet think about all those people u use to serve and protect.and another thing for a pubic service to make that commit that mke me feel like expressing myself and just like u have the right to say how i feel too and ths is jut my opinion wat if that was yur son; Reply to this comment

by VanessaGurl March 27, 2012 3:21 PM EDT

The kid was a thug. The parents lied about the suspension (his 4th), disabled the twitter account (handle: "No_limit_Nigga") where he routinely refers to all women (including teachers) as "hoes" and "*******", and posted 4 year old pictures so we wouldn't see his huge tattoo, and fancy "gold grille" on his teeth--or that he was huge--6'3"
Check out his tweets for yourself: http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/26/the-daily-caller-obtains-trayvon-martins-tweets/

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by NoAnger March 27, 2012 4:54 PM EDT: Yep, with all you lay out he should be dead. Huge?? 6'2" -140lbs. Zimmerman, 5'9" - 255lbs. Now add what you know about Zimmerman. You can lay out the "negatives" about a dead teenager, let's see what you got on Zimmerman.


by thetruthwillout March 27, 2012 5:20 PM EDT: The kid was a thug? Then it's a good thing he's dead, right? Kill them anyway you can, just get rid of them. What a stupid, stupid person you are.


by Blazeoneup March 28, 2012 3:59 AM EDT: even if he was a thug it's not a reason to kill an unarmed kid you stupid B*tch. It's people like you the reason this world has to be destroyed. You devils have done enough to the planet and God chosen people. You might be able to hide behind your computer screen but you can't hide for God. No matter how much you pray, God will make sure you and all the white devils past and present pay in blood. Your people have hell to pay.

by audemus March 27, 2012 2:36 PM EDT

There seems to be a whole lot more people labeling Zimmerman a murderer than people calling Martin a thug. I think jumping to either conclusion right now is foolish and inflammatory.

There are going to be a lot of people with egg on their faces when the dust settles on this one....

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by sandog1960 March 27, 2012 3:24 PM EDT: Agreed - everyone really should wait until the investigations by the Grand Jury and the Justice Dept have run their course and there are a lot more facts.


by phaid4dad March 27, 2012 2:25 PM EDT: Hey conSense did you read the article?; Reply to this comment

by lloydbest1 March 27, 2012 1:07 PM EDT

This is something we will see a lot of as we become more accustomed to posting online and more comfortable with social networking sites. Statements you make that reflect poorly on your employer are apt to get you demoted/suspended/fired.
Violation of one's right to free speech? Maybe, but at what point does one's right of freedom of expression conflict with common decency, the right your employer has to maintain a good reputation or with the common good - to the point that action has to be taken?

This is a subject that will be increasingly contentious.

Jason Griroir and his wife both posted comments to the effect that Mr. Martin was a thug based on no more evidence than he was shot in a confrontation with an armed watchman who, against the advice
of the local police department and by his own admission, followed and confronted said "thug".

Now, Martin may well have been a thug but on Sunday (3/25), Griroir had no way of knowing. Neither he nor I can still say for sure.

So what does one man's opinion have to do with this? It is this.

As a representative of your employer, you have a responsibility to choose words and express thoughs that are not inflammatory. In a highly skilled and public profession as police work, you are an ambassador not only of your department but your entire profession and community. In the case of police work, your job; your entire service is funded by the taxpayer and if the folks you serve don't have the confidence you aren't some kind of "Dirty Harry" loose cannon then it will be more difficult to sustain such funding going forward.

It is one thing to claim that Mr. Zimmerman was justified in his actions. That's merely an opinion and he may well have been. It's quite another to go on a rant and claim with no evidence that Martin was a "thug", deserved what he got and THEN tell a news anchor on WWL to come down to "our town (New Orleans) in a hoodie and join Martin in HELL". That last bit was a direct quote from the New Orleans Times Picayune, a news paper not known for its sensitivity to "black" issues and, in fact, THAT may have been what got you in the hot water you're in now.

If I can't trust your judgement not to be delibrately inflammatory regarding a controversy then I sure as hell can't trust your judgement when someone's life is on the line.

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by ConSense March 27, 2012 2:16 PM EDT: Was he posting as an individual, or as a representative of the New Orleans police department. See, here in America, we have the right to believe that Trevor Martin is a thug if we want to. We have the right to say it, too. We can even "say" it by posting it on a public forum, like this one. We don't have to be "right," or be on the "correct" side of an issue. Watch the headlines, it won't be long before this officer wins a lawsuit against the NOPD for violating his right to free speech.


by phaid4dad March 27, 2012 2:23 PM EDT: Bravo!


by lloydbest1 March 27, 2012 3:15 PM EDT: To ConSense,

"Giroir identified himself as a New Orleans Police Department employee when he wrote, "Act like a thug die like one!" in response to a WWL-TV article about a rally supporting Martin."

My whole point. He was posting AS A REPRESENTATIVE of the N.O. police department. That is what has gotten Chief Serpas' panties in such a twist.

Sorry you didn't understand that.


by AVRWEBGUY March 27, 2012 3:43 PM EDT: ConSense: Read the article again. "...Giroir identified himself as a New Orleans Police Department employee when he wrote, "Act like a thug die like one!" in response to a WWL-TV article about a rally supporting Martin... " Doesn't leave much room for a lawsuit.


by honestabe8 March 27, 2012 12:58 PM EDT: Wow. A big mouth cop. Who could see THAT coming?; Reply to this comment


by AlEDorman March 27, 2012 12:15 PM EDT: Giroir is the thug and everyone knows it.; Reply to this comment

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