Last month, after a Dunkin’ Donuts wrote “#blacklivesmatter” on a police officer’s coffee cup, Tony Lepore, Providence’s infamous dancing cop, who has directed holiday traffic in the city since 1984, organized a protest. He was fired on Tuesday, the Providence Journal reports.

“Recent statements made by Mr. Lepore gave the inaccurate impression that he represented the position of the Providence Police Department,” Public Safety Commissioner Steven M. Paré said in an email statement to the Journal.

“Mr. Lepore was not authorized to speak on behalf of the Providence Police Department and his actions were, in my judgement, a disservice to the Department and to members of the Providence Community.”

Lepore, 68, retired from the Providence Police Department in 1989. He has been hired by the city each year since then to direct traffic downtown during the holiday season.

“I had a mission to make sure all police officers were treated like police officers, not like dirt,” Lepore said of last month’s protest, when he called for the Dunkin’ Donuts worker to be fired. According to the Associated Press, he characterized his own firing as “very simple politics.”

“I feel bad I’m not going to be there anymore,” Lepore told the AP. “But I had a good run. I had a good run. I’m known all over the country, but I wasn’t doing it for myself. I was doing it for the town. It gave the town so much publicity. No one knew where Rhode Island was in 1984.”

Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.