DUBOIS – “Good time and place to eliminate the whole bunch.”
This is the comment David Sullens, now former editor of The Courier-Express in DuBois, made on a live video of Black Lives Matter protestors in Houston, Texas.
The comment was picked up by the PSR Houston Racial Justice Committee who made the connection that he was a newspaper editor and posted it on social media June 2.
Shortly after, a screenshot of the video with his comment was seen by people in the local area.
Almost immediately there were demands that Sullens resign from his position. Instead the Courier-Express printed an apology by Sullens on June 8.
“I am embarrassed and I sincerely regret having made the comment,” Sullens said. “I’ve embarrassed the newspaper and my co-workers. I’ve violated the trust the community places in us. I can only apologize to those I work with and to the community. I am sincerely sorry.
“My reference was to those using peaceful protests as a springboard to rioting and looting. Even so, I should not have posted what I did. It was in very poor taste and I regret having posted it.”
When he posted the comment, the video was showing protestors peacefully assembled with no signs of rioting.
“I am supposed to write clearly, without room for differing interpretations. I failed at that. I apologize to anyone who was or is offended by that comment,” Sullens said.
The paper’s publisher, Pat Patterson, called the comment “reprehensible” and noted that The Courier does not support it and “find it intensely offensive.” He apologized to their readers in the same issue of the paper.
People were still calling for Sullens to resign or be fired and an online petition gathered over 1,000 names by June 10.
“The Courier-Express not only took a week to respond to the incident with an apology from the editor, but the apology itself was lacking, and no public action is being taken against David Sullens,” it says on the petition’s change.org’s page.
“There is no excuse in 2020 for ignorant and racist remarks ‘accidental’ or other wise.”
The Courier-Express announced that Sullens resigned on its Facebook page late yesterday.
Sullens has been the editor of the Courier-Express since January of 2018. He graduated from East Texas State University in 1971 and worked in Texas for 23 years before moving from the area, according to his LinkedIn account.
He has been in Pennsylvania since 2014 when he took a job as an editor at Tioga Publishing in Wellsboro.