Nazi-Saluting Cop Plans to Sue for Defamation of Character
A cop who was found in KKK garb giving a Nazi salute claims he has a perfectly valid reason and should not have been fired.
Nazi-saluting cops who’ve been fired from their jobs have reputations to maintain, too.
This week, Raymond Mott, a former police detective with the Lake Arthur PD in Louisiana, was canned after a Facebook photo surfaced of Mott wearing Ku Klux Klan garb and giving the Hitler salute at a meeting in Troy, North Carolina, last summer. The Troy Klan rally ended up being a complete failure with counter-protesters outnumbering the Klansmen nearly 5-1 and mercilessly heckling the racists.
“The picture speaks for itself,” Mott told the Lafayette ABC affiliate. “I’m standing at a rally against illegal immigration. There’s not much to be said about the picture. I’ve never denied it was me.”
After the news was broken by the Jennings Daily News, the former detective initially refused to resign. He also then claimed that he was at the rally working undercover for the FBI. (He subsequently copped to lying through his teeth.)
Police Chief Ray Marcantel asked the Lake Arthur Town Council to get rid of Mott, and at Wednesday’s meeting, the council voted unanimously to fire the Nazi-saluting cop. In response, Mott vowed to sue the town, arguing that his termination was illegal, that the photo was taken out of proper context, and that he has a perfectly valid explanation for the pic that’s full of white-supremacist and fascistic imagery.
“The process that [the town] went through in order to terminate me was not within guidelines of Louisiana law,” Mott said. “Some information was put out that puts my family’s safety at risk. And I will be taking legal action.”
At the time of his firing, Mott was the officer with the most arrests at the Lake Arthur police department. Many of Mott’s cases are now undergoing review by District Attorney Michael Cassidy’s office.
Police Chief Marcantel could not be reached for comment for this story.