UNITED STATES—On April 27, Bellevue Marshal’s Office made a statement on their Facebook page that Deputy Nate Sylvester has been suspended after complaints were made regarding an April 21, TikTok video Deputy Sylvester created and posted mocking NBA player LeBron James.
In the video, Sylvester does a skit portraying a call of a stabbing. In the middle of the call, he gets another call from LeBron James. Sylvester acts like he is asking the NBA star what he should do.
Sylvester says, “why does that matter?” He then goes on to say, “so, it’s okay if a black person kills another black person, but it’s not okay if a white officer kills a black person while a black person is attempting to kill another black person?”
Sylvester ended the calling referring to Michael Jordan as the Greatest of All Time.
A policeman calls LeBron for advice in hilarious viral video pic.twitter.com/iQmLOKFXHr
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) April 25, 2021
Sylvester’s video has over 2.5 million views. The Post Millennial shared the video on Twitter bringing in an additional 158,000 views.
@KingJames tweeted in response to the policeman’s post, “YOU’RE NEXT #ACCOUNTABILITY.”
I’m so damn tired of seeing Black people killed by police. I took the tweet down because its being used to create more hate -This isn’t about one officer. it’s about the entire system and they always use our words to create more racism. I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY
— LeBron James (@KingJames) April 21, 2021
There has been a #GoFundMe account set up for officer Sylvester that reportedly raised $200,000.
Most of your race-based tweets achieve nothing other than fomenting hate, division, and tribalism. You are a dispenser of racial hate rooted in an ethos of victimology. Strong people overcome their tragic circumstances as my family and I did when we escaped the Middle East.
— Gad Saad (@GadSaad) April 22, 2021
Others, such as GadSaad challenged James telling him that his posts were full of hate and all they did was cause more hate.
The TikTok video the officer made was in reference to an incident in Ohio last week involving, Ma’Khia Bryant, a teen in foster care in Columbus, Ohio.
The teen’s foster mother told Newsweek that the dispute over some housework. Bryant was going after her foster mother with a knife when bodycam video footage captured the video below.
Officer Nick Reardon responded to the call shouting “get down,” three times, and then fires. killing Bryant. The incident is currently under investigation.
took place in Columbus, Ohio, on Apr.20 claiming the life of Ma’khia Bryant. As previously reported, On Wednesday (April 21), James shared a photo of officer, Nicholas Reardon, who fatally shot Bryant. The picture of Reardon, who is white, was accompanied with the caption,
— Yetunde Folarin (@xxyettymamaxx) April 26, 2021
