Conservative pundit Charlie Kirk was shot and murdered Wednesday near Salt Lake City, Utah, and the NFL's Carolina Panthers saw one of their employees make insensitive posts about Kirk's broad-daylight murder.
Charlie Rock, whose LinkedIn page said that Rock was a football communications coordinator for the Panthers, posted insensitive commentary regarding Kirk's death on Rock's Instagram account.
Today, the Panthers fired Rock -- whose inflammatory posts included an apparent rhetorical question that asked, "Why are yall sad? Your man said it was worth it" and also featured an image from the rap group Wu-Tang Clan's long-ago album that spotlighted a song on the production titled "Protect Your Neck."
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Kirk was shot through the neck and died shortly thereafter at a hospital just south of Salt Lake City, where Kirk had drawn a large crowd for his speech at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
By midday Thursday, Rock had deleted his X account (formerly Twitter), which had recently featured a message about how Rock would be a great addition to the Carolina Panthers media relations/communications staff.
The Panthers did not directly address their decision to terminate Rock's employment, but they did post a statement on social media that condemned violence.
"The views expressed by our employees are their own," the statement read, "and do not represent those of the Carolina Panthers.
"We do not condone violence of any kind. We are taking this matter very seriously and have accordingly addressed it with the individual."
Rock's bio on his LinkedIn page stated that he was a University of Albany graduate, part of the State University of New York educational system.
Per that same LinkedIn account, the Carolina Panthers had just promoted Rock into an expanded role earlier this summer. He posted job duties on the LinkedIn page that indicated his responsibilities for the NFL franchise included the following items:
"I am currently a football communications coordinator with the Carolina Panthers. My responsibilities have increased throughout my time with the organization to include solely generating and distributing our weekly game release, managing our OMG page, preparing our offensive coordinator, along with marquee players, for press conferences, collecting and recording all interview requests (local and national) for players and coaches, creating flip cards with rosters and depth chart information for media and broadcasters, distributing stats to coaches in a timely manner, and creating game day programs for fans to enjoy. I also staffed home games with various duties from credentialing to overseeing press conferences."
Rock noted he previously also had worked in the NFL for both the Chicago Bears and Los Angeles Rams.
