Nate Silvester, a Fox News media darling for posting a Tik Tok video showing him supposedly responding to a report of two Black men fighting and asking for guidance from NBA star LeBron James, was fired from the Bellevue (Idaho) Marshal’s Office for repeated violations of department policy.
A Tik Tok video Silvester made, while in uniform and apparently sitting in a police car, showed him making mocking statements about not responding to an assault between two Black men, asking the dispatcher to find out what LeBron James would do.
James had previously spoken out about how police responded to a call regarding 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant, who was shot by a Columbus police officer when she threatened another girl with a knife. Initial witness statements said Bryant wasn’t armed at the time she was shot by a police officer arriving on the scene, but subsequent footage from a police body cam showed her preparing to stab another person before an officer opened fire, killing her.
It is unclear if James made his statement knowing the girl was attacking someone else with a knife or if he was reacting to reports that the girl was unarmed.
According to NBC News, Silvester had been on a ‘last chance agreement’ with his superiors that provided him an additional opportunity to regain status within the department. The mayor’s office said Silvester was dismissed after being found in violation of a department policy, although it did not cite what policy he violated.
“The policy violations have nothing to do with the tone or the tenor of his speech that he posts online,” the mayor said. “He was not terminated for the content of his speech; he was terminated for his failure to follow clearly laid out and well established policy.”
Silvester has since become a icon on Fox News as being victimized and “canceled” for stating his views in what Fox News host Sean Hannity called a “funny” video. The network does not address the fact that Silvester made the video in uniform and apparently on-duty as he says in his parody that he would not respond to a dispute among two Black men.