Bloomington Facebook groups blew up Wednesday night with Kenny Parrish’s minutelong TikTok video attacking George Floyd.
Parrish, son of owner of Ken’s Westside Service and Towing Ken Parrish, said in the video that George Floyd was a “menace to society” and that he probably died from a meth overdose, not from the Minneapolis police officer who held his neck down.
“That officer did us a favor, he was a menace to society,” Kenny Parrish said. “He didn’t need to be on the streets, cause clearly putting him in prison was not working. Sorry, he needed to go.”
Before ending the video, he added, “Trump 2020, four more years.”
Kenny was wearing his Ken’s Westside uniform in the video, and thousands of people watched it, with screen recordings being shared after the TikTok video was taken down.
Ken's Westside is one of the towing companies contracted by the city to do towing requested by police or parking enforcement officers. City communication director Yael Ksander said in an email Thursday that the city sent a letter to the towing company today giving them a seven-day notice before they terminate their contract.
Ken and Kathy Parrish, Kenny’s parents, posted an apology on Ken’s Westside's Facebook page and announced that Kenny had been dismissed from the company.
“He was not raised this way,” Ken Parrish said in his post. “My wife nor I as well as my whole company do NOT support anything he has said in his video and we can’t express how sorry we are to anyone he has hurt or offended by his words or actions.”
He described his son’s words as “disgusting opinions” and said anyone who wants to talk to him or his wife about it is free to do so.
Many people on Facebook were divided in their reactions when Ken Parrish apologized and announced his son’s dismissal. Some sided with Ken, noting their good experiences with the company and the owners, while others wondered if Ken Parrish knew his son was racist before and had continued employing him.
Two other videos that have since been deleted from Kenny’s TikTok showed him singing along to “Bloodshed” by Upchurch. The lyrics reference the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 and the surrounding violence, which resulted in a white supremacist running over and killing protester Heather Heyer. Upchurch criticizes Black Lives Matter protesters in the song and suggests confederate statues should be kept up.
In an interview with the IDS on Thursday, Ken Parrish said Kenny will not be eligible for rehire.
