Several hundred people attended a rally calling for a suburban New York county sheriff to resign over what they described as racist posts on Facebook.
The rally occurred Friday in New City, outside the office of Rockland Sheriff Louis Falco. New City is about 15 miles (24 kilometres) north of New York City.
Lohud.com reported speakers called for Falco to resign over posts on his personal Facebook page that included links to articles about Black people accused of violent crimes. They also criticized him for not condemning some responses to the posts — including one from a white supremacist neo-Nazi website — that contained racist language.
“We demand change, and that change begins with him. Louis Falco must go,” Pastor Everett Newtown told the crowd.
In a statement to Lohud.com last week, Falco apologized and said he didn’t see the comments that accompanied his posts.
“While I did not see the comments because they were immediately deleted when the post was removed in its entirety, I want to make it clear that I strongly condemn those hateful and racist comments which have no place in our, or any community,” Falco wrote.
County Executive Ed Day told the website last week that he has not known Falco to be racist or biased during more than 10 years working with him.
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Rockland Republican Party Chairman Lawrence Garvey questioned part of Falco’s explanation but wrote on the party’s Facebook page, “if the people of Rockland County want to end Sheriff Falco’s tenure as sheriff, it should be done at the ballot box and not by way of mob justice.”
