Last Friday, an assistant manager at a Hamburg, New York Wal-Mart posted the above image to Facebook: a photo of two Muslim women customers shopping in his upstate store, along with the caption, “Halloween came early this year ... do they really have to fuckin dress like that ... your in my country ... get that fuckin shit off!!!!!.”

This terrifically idiotic insult came to the attention of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and yesterday, the advocacy group contacted Wal-Mart, publicly asking the company to take "appropriate disciplinary action" against the unnamed assistant manager in a press release:

"We urge Walmart to send the message that all customers, regardless of religion or national origin, must be safe from harassment and intimidation by employees," says CAIR-NY Board President Ryan Mahoney.

The same day, Wal-Mart fired the employee, who's since been widely identified as Buffalo resident Terry Earsing.

CAIR-NY alleged that Earsing took the photo while he was at work and that's why they engaged Wal-Mart about the situation. Earsing maintains that a friend sent him the picture and he posted the image from home. The truth would be very simple to figure out, given the ease of determining EXIF data and social-media timestamps and cross-referencing retail punch clocks, but that distinction doesn't seem to be the deciding factor for the corporate fiefdom, whose spokesperson told the Buffalo News, "We set high expectations for our associates, and this associate clearly failed to meet these expectations at every level." (Ahem.)

In a telephone call with the Buffalo News, the retail worker was contrite:

“I’m truly, honestly sorry about the whole thing. I just apologize. I don’t know what else I can say,” he said.

Earsing said the incident started out as a joke that went awry.

To put the post in context, here are a few other jokes Earsing shared to Facebook that same day:

Someone please show Mr. Earsing how to change his privacy settings.

To contact the author of this post, write to camille@gawker.com.