Providence's Dancing Traffic Cop Got Fired Again
Tony Lepore, the “Dancing Cop” of Providence, Rhode Island, was fired last week, after he organized a protest against a Dunkin Donuts worker who wrote “#blacklivesmatter” on a police officer’s cup. On Tuesday, the Associated Press reports, he was fired again—well, “disinvited”—from his new gig, in East Providence.
While Lepore retired from the Providence Police Department in 1989, he’s been direct holiday traffic in the city since 1984. After he was fired last week, East Providence invited him to bring his act across the Seekonk River. However, the city rescinded its invitation, according to the AP, after dozens of people—including Providence NAACP President Jim Vincent—protested.
Lepore expressed his frustration on WPRO-Am radio. “You don’t represent what Martin Luther King Jr. wanted your organization to be,” he said, addressing Vincent.
Actually, the NAACP was founded twenty years before Martin Luther King Jr. was born. King is most closely affiliated with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which is a different group.
“They’re trying to say I’m a racist,” Lepore told the AP.
Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.