A GoFundMe account started by a close friend of the reportedly suspended cop who mocked LeBron James in a viral TikTok video, has exceeded $400k.
As of Tuesday morning, the account had earned over $412,000.
Deputy Nate Sylvester, an officer with the Bellevue, Idaho, marshall’s office, posted a video mocking James after the NBA star tweeted and then deleted a picture of an officer present at the Ma’Khia Bryant shooting with a caption that read, “YOU’RE NEXT.”
In response, Silvester posted a video pretending to have a conversation with James while responding to a hypothetical fight between two black people.
“You don’t care if a Black person kills another Black person, but you do care if a white cop kills a Black person, even if he’s doing it to save the life of another Black person?” Silvester says. “I mean it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then again, you are really good at basketball, so I guess I’ll take your word for it.”
A policeman calls LeBron for advice in hilarious viral video pic.twitter.com/iQmLOKFXHr
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) April 25, 2021
The video was viewed over 5 million times.
However, Silvester’s employer, the Bellevue Marshal’s Office, was not pleased with the “extreme controversy” caused by the video and issued a statement saying they were reviewing the matter.
“The Bellevue Marshal’s Office is aware of the extreme controversy regarding Deputy Marshal Silvester’s viral TikTok,” the agency wrote. “The statements made do NOT represent the Bellevue Marshal’s Office. The Bellevue Marshal’s Office always demands that our Deputies engage with our citizens in a friendly and professional manner. This is NOT how we expect our Deputies to act on duty or use city time. This is a personnel issue that is being dealt with internally.
“We would like to thank everyone that took the time to reach out to us. We greatly value our relationship within our wonderful community.”
Gannon Ward, who created the GoFundMe, describes the mission of the fundraising effort.
“I started this GoFundMe to help out my friend Nate due to his suspension without pay over a viral TikTok,” Ward wrote. As I stated originally, the future of his job is still unclear, so I started this GoFundMe to help him. He is the sole beneficiary from this account. Therefore, 100% of the funds collected from this GoFundMe account will go directly into Deputy Marshal Nate Silvester’s personal bank account. Period. They are 100% his to do what he wants with them. Period.”
Silvester reportedly plans to distribute much of the funds to the law enforcement community.
As stated in earlier updates by him, from there, Nate plans to give back to the police community at large, including the First Responder Children’s Foundation I linked below. He still plans on donating a portion of the funds collected to that charity. Since this has become significantly bigger than I ever anticipated, and landed Nate on some major national news, he wishes to use this platform he’s been given to help other officers in other situations similar to his, on a case by case basis.
“The vast majority of people in our country are amazing, decent, honest, compassionate, generous people,” Silvester said in a YouTube video thanking people for their support. “We just don’t get to hear from these people very often.
“Americans still love their police officers, they still love their men and women in blue, and you guys have made that resoundingly clear.”
The NBA failed to discipline LeBron James for his tweet targeting the Columbus police officer.
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