NYC Senator Axes Staffer Who Compared Parkland Teen To Hitler

BROOKLYN, NY — A South Brooklyn state senator Tuesday fired a staffer who compared a survivor of the Parkland, Florida school shooting to Adolf Hitler. Sen. Marty Golden axed Anthony Testaverde after he shared an image on Facebook showing the Nazi dictator next to David Hogg, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who's become a vocal advocate for gun control.

"Anthony Testaverde is no longer employed by my office," Golden, a Bay Ridge Republican, said in a statement Tuesday. "While freedom of speech is a right, that all citizens enjoy, what occurred in this instance was wrong and cannot be tolerated."

Testaverde, formerly a special assistant to Golden, shared a meme Saturday from a Facebook page called "The Common Sense Conservative" likening Hogg, a 17-year-old whose classmates were shot down in February, to the genocidal Nazi Party that perpetrated the Holocaust against Jews and others.

The meme shows one photo of Hogg at a podium raising his fist next to an image of Hitler giving the open-handed Nazi salute. Another image of Hogg wearing a dark armband in memory of the 17 students and staff whom Nikolas Cruz allegedly killed at his school is seen next to a photo of someone wearing a Nazi armband emblazoned with a swastika.

"I knew something was off about this kid," text below the photos reads.

Testaverde shared the image the same day that hundreds of thousands of students and activists took to the streets for "March for Our Lives," a nationwide protest calling for stricter gun control laws.

The post isn't publicly visible on Testaverde's Facebook profile, but a Democratic state Assembly candidate posted a screenshot of it to Twitter.

Testaverde did not immediately return a voicemail left Tuesday at a phone number listed under his name.

Ross Barkan, a Democrat running for Golden's state Senate seat, called for Testaverde's ouster Monday, saying Golden's failure to fire him would mean he's "effectively endorsing these heinous ideas."

"I am glad this happened," Barkan tweeted Tuesday in reaction to Testaverde's firing. "Thank you everyone for raising your voices. For once, common sense prevailed."

Testaverde isn't the first Golden staffer to come under fire for criticizing Hogg on social media. Activists slammed another aide, John Seravalli, for "liking" a Twitter post calling the teen a "weak phony loser."

Mallory McMahon, a co-founder of the progressive activist group Fight Back Bay Ridge, said she was surprised but pleased that Golden fired Testaverde.

"I wouldn’t have expected Marty to do anything whatsoever because it’s clear that this type of language, rhetoric, behavior, is pervasive among Marty Golden’s staff," McMahon said.

(Lead image: State Sen. Marty Golden speaks at an event in 2013. Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)