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Black residents in an overwhelmingly white county in Virginia worry they’d be treated differently should they receive care from emergency medical technician Alex McNabb, a white supremacist whose neo-Nazi podcast recently got him suspended from his job.
Residents packed out a meeting of the Patrick County board of supervisors Monday, at which local officials, lawyers and McNabb himself squabbled over the EMT’s fate as a health worker. Last week, McNabb was placed on unpaid leave for comments he made on “The Daily Shoah,” a neo-Nazi podcast he frequents as a co-host. He was suspended without pay shortly after a HuffPost report revealed the comments, but he wasn’t fired.
Black residents of Patrick County ― which is 92 percent white ― said they were worried about being treated differently by a white supremacist EMT, according to CNN, which covered the meeting.
“We think Adolf Hitler is dead. Nah, you cannot kill a demon,” Vietnam veteran Charles Thomas said. “Just imagine if you were a black person needing medical help and call the rescue … your chances of dying in that rescue vehicle are greater than if you stay home.”
“I’m mad as hell is bad,” said resident and Rev. Daniel Spencer, according to CNN. “My hope and my prayer is we can get rid of this individual. You have the power.”
Part of that fear was over McNabb’s comments under his moniker on the podcast, “Dr. Narcan.” In one episode, he referenced stabbing a young black patient with needles, noting his “immense satisfaction as he terrorized this youngster with a needle and stabbed him thusly in the arm with a large-gauge IV catheter.”
It’s yet unclear whether McNabb ever treated his patients of color differently; the state Department of Health and his employer, Jeb Stuart Volunteer Rescue Squad, have launched investigations to find out. McNabb denied doing so at the meeting, and previously told HuffPost that Dr. Narcan is a “work of fiction.”
And though McNabb called the decision over his potential firing a free speech issue, the chair of supervisors, Lock Boyce, wants him gone.
“I ran rescue around here for over 10 years ― everyone that I ran rescue squad with was a compassionate human being,” he said to McNabb at the meeting. “You have sullied that reputation.”
Boyce motioned to withhold money from Jeb Stuart Volunteer Rescue Squad until they fired McNabb, but no other supervisor supported the motion. Wren Williams, the lawyer for the rescue organization, argued that the county should let the state investigate before it made any decision to defund what he classified as an asset to the community.
As Boyce read from HuffPost’s report and detailed the things McNabb said, the EMT responded with prodding remarks (watch highlights of that shouting match here).
“‘Dr. Narcan terrorized that youngster with a needle and stabbed him in the arm’ using an improper needle size. Did you say that? Do you make that up? Do you think that’s funny?” Boyce asked.
“I think it’s funny,” McNabb said. “My audience thinks it’s funny.”
“I don’t find any of these things entertaining,” Boyce said, eventually wrapping up the argument with, “I am sorry that the county board of supervisors didn’t bring all of the pressure that they could bring to bare to fire Mr. McNabb. I think he should never been hired. And once his views were known he should have been fired immediately.”
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