Grayson Fritts Deserves to Be Fired

Grayson Fritts absolutely deserves to be fired. By citing fears of free-speech lawsuits as their reason for offering him an early buyout instead of terminating his employment, the Knox County Sheriff’s Department is demonstrating how spineless they are, they’re demonstrating their disregard for gay Knoxvillians, and they’re demonstrating a lack of understanding of how free speech actually works. 

Grayson Fritts is a Knox County Sheriff’s Department detective who is currently on administrative leave for shooting an unarmed shoplifter in the neck as they ran away. He also happens to be a fire and brimstone, bible thumping lunatic who apparently pastors a church. Recently, a video surfaced of Fritts “evangelizing” to his “congregation” in a venue that looks like it very well could have been a poorly renovated DMV office. During the five minutes of his recorded tirade, he refers to gay people as “animals,” “sodomites,” and “freaks.” He also declares multiple times that gay people should be executed for their “transgressions,” and that police officers have a commitment to carry out those “sentences.” His absurd “sermon” has garnered national attention, having been picked up by publications such as USA Today and The Washington Post.

Grayson Fritts is obviously way out of line here, and so is the KCSD. Inciting violence and hate speech are not types of speech that are protected by the first amendment, and calling for the extermination of a minority group undeniably fits those categories. Knox County Sheriff Tom Spangler needs to do his due diligence in protecting the community he serves, rather than protecting the homophobic officers that serve him. 

Grayson Fritts also called out Taylor Swift for her outspoken support of the Equality Act. Criticizing my girl is enough to make me want to choke anybody, but this desperately closeted faggot clearly offers plenty of other reasons as well.  

Grayson Fritts is a disgusting human being; hopefully he soon suffers a stress induced heart attack behind his Office Depot lectern. There’s no guarantee that will happen, so if you’d like to contact the Knox County Sheriff’s Office to advocate for Fritts’s termination without compensation, you can call them at (865) 215-2444, or you can submit this contact form.