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Public Defenders Fired for Anti-Arab Postings
Two Broward County assistant public defenders were fired Tuesday for Facebook comments calling Palestinians “cockroaches” and “filthy swine.”
Bruce Raticoff and Gary Sheres both lost their jobs, as outrage built after the Sun Sentinel published an article including the Facebook comments a week ago, Public Defender Howard Finkelstein said.
The remarks from the two mens’ personal Facebook accounts last week were posted under an item about Palestinians allegedly celebrating the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teen boys. The killings were blamed on the Islamic militant group Hamas.
“They are the filthy swine they don’t eat. Their ignorance to the world bewilders the dumbest people I have ever met,” Sheres posted.
A bit later, a comment came from Raticoff’s account: “That’s why the Palestinian people are considered the cockroaches of the world. Reprehensible and despicable with utter disregard for civility and humanity. Burn them to the ground.”
Sheres explained later that he was only labeling as “filthy swine” the Palestinians who murder people or celebrate murders. His attorney, Jason Blank, said: “Mr. Finkelstein wrongfully terminated Gary. We will address the matter in an appropriate forum.”
Raticoff said he hadn’t written the comments at all, that someone had accessed his Facebook account and posted under his name.
He told the Sun Sentinel on Tuesday that his lawyer, Richard Rosenbaum, showed Finkelstein a sworn affidavit from the mother of the person who used his account, verifying his explanation. But Finkelstein still didn’t believe him, saying his review found that Raticoff was responsible for the comments.
“My boss turned around and decided I’m a liar,” Raticoff said.
Finkelstein said he “did not agonize over this decision,” explaining that he mentally plugged in other groups into the Facebook comments — Catholics, Jews, black people — and decided termination was warranted.
Finkelstein apologized Tuesday to Arabs, Palestinians and Muslims in the community, promising that if they need a public defender, they’ll get one who’ll treat them fairly. Among those who contacted Finkelstein after the Sun Sentinel report were the Center for American Islamic Relations and the Anti-Defamation League, he said.
Raticoff told the Sun Sentinel that he was home sick with the flu, when Finkelstein called and fired him.
“I said, ‘At least I won’t be the public defender who wiped his ass with the First Amendment to the Constitution on Independence Day,’ ” Raticoff said. “Men and women have died in various wars throughout the history of this country defending free speech. He spit on the graves of those men and women.”
Raticoff spent 15 years with the public defender’s office. Before that, he was a prosecutor for four years. He said he now intends to go into private practice.
Finkelstein said Raticoff had been in trouble along similar lines in 2005, for emailing a “racist” joke around the office in which one of the multiple choice answers was “extreme Muslims.”
At a staff meeting Tuesday, former co-workers of the two men sat grim-faced as they learned about the firings. Finkelstein said he’d warned the staff in six prior meetings about the responsibility public employees have when posting on social networks.
In putting a human face on the Facebook comments, he repeatedly mentioned Abualown, whose parents are from the West Bank, and her husband from the Gaza Strip. She was upset by the postings. Nevertheless, Finkelstein said she argued for their jobs.
In the audience, Abualown started crying.
But later she took to the stage and said those who use hate speech are “condoning the violence that is associated with that hate.”
She asked the standing room only crowd of co-workers, “Ask yourselves, are you living the example you want your children to be? Or are you perpetuating the racism that this country fought so hard to destroy?”
Brittany Wallman and Rafael Olmeda