A Sacramento nurse fired from her job over offensive comments she made about slain man Stephon Clark is now begging for donations to help her cover her day-to-day expenses.
Faith Linthicum, who was booted from her job as a labor and delivery nurse at Kaiser’s Roseville Medical Center last week, launched a GoFundMe page on Saturday looking to raise $25,000 from sympathetic supporters, according to the Sacramento Bee.
“I am a United States Military veteran who served as a medic, and then fulfilled my dream taking care of people by becoming a nurse,” Linthicum wrote. “… I was recently fired from my job as a nurse at Kaiser Permanente for exercising my First Amendment right to free speech.”
“I am now unemployed and unable to pay rent, buy food for myself and my two dogs (French Bulldog & Great Dane), or make my car payments/insurance,” she continued. “I’m asking for support during this trying time as I try to find employment and heal.”
Linthicum lost her job after commenting that Clark, an unarmed Black man shot 8 times by police on March 18, “deserved” to be killed because he was “acting stupid.”
“Yeah but he was running from the police jumping over fences and breaking in people’s houses … why run??!!,” she wrote in a Facebook post commenting on the deadly police shooting. “He deserved it for being stupid.”
The now unemployed nurse claimed she’s the victim of an attack by a local activist who brought her damning comments to light. On her GoFundMe Page, Linthicum insisted she’s by no means a hateful or discriminatory person, and described herself as a woman of faith who loves all people and treats everyone equally.
Two additional posts from Linthicum dug up by Sacramento activist Christina Arechiga suggest otherwise, however.
“Can we protest the deaths of all the people shot by black people too?” one post read.
“Hell (sic) yeah!!! Build that wall Mr. President!! #prototypeshopping,” read the other.
Arechiga said she was so concerned by the posts that she took her complaints to Kaiser after learning Linthicum was a nurse there. Hospital officials promised to investigate the “serious matter” and by Friday, Linthicum was relieved of her duties, the Sac Bee reported.
“How can we trust our lives, the lives of our Black and brown babies to these people?” Arechiga wrote on Facebook. “Nurses are supposed to help people not be happy when people die.”
So far, Lithicum’s GoFundMe page has raised nearly $20,500 in donations.