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NJ gov.: Correctional police officer’s reenactment of Floyd killing ‘reprehensible’

Gov. Phil Murphy said there’s a process underway about disciplining the officer, but didn’t say if he would lose his job or pension

By Matt Arco and Brent Johnson
NJ Advance Media Group

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Gov. Phil Murphy said it was “completely unacceptable and reprehensible” for a New Jersey state corrections officer to taunt Black Lives Matter protesters by reenacting the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.

But the governor stopped short of saying whether the man should lose his state job or his pension.

“He was suspended and rightfully so,” Murphy said Wednesday during a regular briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s reprehensible. Period,” he said. ”It was completely unacceptable and reprehensible.”

The video was taken Gloucester County Monday. And Murphy said there’s a process underway about disciplining the officer.

“Let’s let that process play out,” he said.

The video posted on social media showed a group of men, including the corrections officer, mocking protesters — with one kneeling on a man’s neck.

The officer has been suspended, officials said Tuesday. Online commentators and state employment records identify him as Joseph DeMarco.

A second person who participated in the taunting was fired from their job at FedEx, the company said.

Murphy took to Twitter on Tuesday to condemn the incident.

“Mocking George Floyd’s murder in effort to belittle the calls for justice from our Black and Brown communities is repugnant. I condemn this behavior in the strongest terms possible,” the governor wrote. “We won’t let the actions of a few distract from our progress toward dismantling systemic racism.”

Murphy, a Democrat, has repeatedly said Floyd should still be alive and America needs to do more work to remove “the stain of systemic racism” that continues to plague the country.

The governor on Sunday also marched in a pair of Black Lives Matter protests inspired by Floyd’s killing.

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©2020 NJ Advance Media Group, Edison, N.J.

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