A prominent voice actor weighed in on the so-called Covington controversy, saying the students in the incident deserved death threats.
John DiMaggio responded to an article about Covington Catholic High School students getting a slew of death threats by saying: “I’ve never in my life said ‘Well, those are well-deserved death threats.’ but I’ve also learned to never say never,” he said. “[Expletive] them [expletive] white kids.”
DiMaggio then tried clarifying his initial comment after some people confronted him about his comment. “I’m not saying death threats are ok, but you reap what you sow. That’s my point. PUNK [expletive] KIDS KNEW EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE DOING. And I did see the video. Israelites? We deal with them in NYC on the street all the time, shouting their [expletive]. So what? Those kids? #glasshouses.”
The ‘Israelites’ referred to a group of religious extremists who were captured on footage hurling obscenities at the students for about an hour.
DiMaggio declined to apologize, later calling people criticizing him “lunatics.”
The 50-year-old is a longtime voice actor, having voiced characters on numerous television shows, including “Futurama” and “Adventure Time.”
It’s not clear if DiMaggio will face professional repercussions for his endorsement of death threats. A journalist who said he hoped the students and their parents did was fired from one of his jobs but not from his writing gig. A Hollywood producer who said that all kids wearing “Make America Great Again” hats should be killed by shoving them into woodchippers apologized but hasn’t appeared to face any professional penalty. And former comedian Kathy Griffin was forced to delete a tweet that mistakenly claimed the students were pictured displaying a Nazi hand sign.
A slew of other entertainment professionals, activists, analysts, and reporters encouraged violence against the students, such as multiple current and former CNN analysts who said they should be punched.
Multiple students have spoken out about receiving death threats, including Nick Sandmann, who was made the face of the Washington Jan. 18 incident after he was accosted by a Native American anti-Trump activist who repeatedly banged a drum in his face while another activist shouted, “Go back to Europe.”
Nick Sandmann from Covington Catholic High School stands in front of Native American activist Nathan Phillips while the latter bangs a drum in his face in Washington on Jan. 18, 2019. Kaya Taitano via Reuters
“I have received physical and death threats via social media, as well as hateful insults. One person threatened to harm me at school, and one person claims to live in my neighborhood. My parents are receiving death and professional threats because of the social media mob that has formed over this issue,” Sandmann said.
“I am being called every name in the book, including a racist, and I will not stand for this mob-like character assassination of my family’s name. My parents were not on the trip, and I strive to represent my family in a respectful way in all public settings.”
The threats forced the school to close due to security concerns on Tuesday, though it re-opened on Wednesday.
A police car sits at the entrance to Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, Ky., on Jan 19, 2019. Bryan Woolston/AP Photo
Another student shared more details of the abuse with The Daily Wire: “We’ve been getting school shooting threats, school bomb threats, vandalism of our buildings, people have gone out and said they’re going to slash our tires and break our school windows. We’ve have threats saying that it’s best if the students at CovCat are locked in the school and set on fire. We’ve had tweets saying that we should be raped by clergy members. We’ve had every sort of threat that we should be thrown in woodchippers.”
The student added that people have been doing everything they can to make their lives miserable, seemingly having no limit to what they'd do.
“They put the numbers out of all of our sponsors and they’ve been calling our sponsors up,” the student added. “Our parents’ careers: They’ve been calling our parents’ jobs. School and personal reputation: So our school has a great reputation and in our community and abroad, and especially with colleges too. So, they’ve attacked our reputation. Colleges and careers aspirations: this is going to be kind of like a little blemish, like if we say where we’re from, they’re going to be like, ‘oh, you’re associated with this.’”
“And then on us, just personally, just scared to go to school. Not many high school students have to live through the threat of saying, ‘It’s best if you guys are all locked in a school and set on fire.’ I mean, just imagine that.”
