Cop’s TikTok decried George Floyd’s death. NC police say that’s not why he was fired
A North Carolina police officer’s TikTok denouncing the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis went viral overnight, landing him thousands of social media followers and an interview with TV host Tamron Hall.
But two months later, he said the video cost him his job.
Jaquay D. Williams, identified as “Officer Williams” on TikTok, posted a video on his social media accounts last week announcing he’d been unexpectedly fired from the Greensboro Police Department.
“For the last two months my job put me on administrative leave to do an investigation into my TikTok,” Williams said in the video. “After this investigation was done — which I found out today — I was relieved of my duties from that certain job. Upset, confused, I mean I felt all the emotions.”
In a statement Wednesday, the Greensboro Police Department confirmed Williams was terminated Aug. 13 but said it “was not related to his comments about the George Floyd incident.”
“GPD command staff noted they do not have an issue with any of his statements in the George Floyd video and agree with his denouncement of the officers’ actions,” the statement reads. “Chief Brian James made similar statements in a press conference condemning the actions of the officers involved in the George Floyd incident.”
Police department spokesperson Ronald Glenn declined to release any further information in an email to McClatchy News, citing a personnel matter.
“I will reiterate that Mr. Williams was not terminated because he spoke out about George Floyd,” he said.
A viral TikTok
Williams posted the now-viral TikTok on May 27 — two days after the death of George Floyd. The 46-year-old Black man died after now-fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed a knee into his neck for about eight minutes, as three other officers didn’t intervene. All four officers have since been fired and face criminal charges.
“I am disgusted with the things that happened in Minneapolis,” Williams, who is in uniform, starts the video saying.
It lasts less than a minute. During that time, Williams questions “who has control of the situation” when there is “four of y’all, one of him,” and why none of the other officers thought to help despite being trained as first responders.
“That’s the reason I got behind this badge, because I wanted — the officers that’s afraid to step up — I wanted to be the one to step up,” he said. “If I see wrong happening, wrong is not happening in my presence. I’m going to check it. And that’s period.”
The video has been liked more than 1.6 million times and widely shared on social media, even scoring him an interview in June with Tamron Hall on a special episode of her show called “Hear Us Now.” Hall is a broadcast journalist and host of the Tamron Hall Show.
Williams told Hall internal affairs at the police department called him to come in about four hours after he posted the TikTok. During the meeting, he said his supervisors talked to him about the department’s social media policy and posting videos while in uniform.
They recommended he remove the video, Williams said, but by then it was already going viral.
A second video
Williams said he did heed a supervisor’s warning not to post more videos in uniform. But a music video he shared on June 18 titled “Hello America” put him in more hot water, according to his Instagram.
The video shows Williams — who is not in uniform — with his hands bound in chains and his head in a noose rapping about being Black in America. He said on Instagram that he’s been “doing music forever (since elementary school) and my style of music is more of a conscious style.”
“Boy, they did not like that at all,” Williams said of the video.
The Greensboro Police Department subsequently put Williams on administration leave until an investigation into his social media accounts was completed, he said on Instagram.
He was fired roughly two months later.
This story was originally published August 20, 2020 at 7:16 PM with the headline "Cop’s TikTok decried George Floyd’s death. NC police say that’s not why he was fired."
