Florida man arrested at Charlottesville white supremacist rally has lost his job

Jim O'Brien, a Gainesville resident who was arrested in connection with the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, has reportedly lost his job.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, Tampa-based contracting company North American Roofing Services released an internal memo yesterday that stated O'Brien is no longer employed with the company.

"The flurry of published documentation supporting discriminatory beliefs and activity by this Manager has disrupted the business and made it impossible for him to perform his job. Therefore, we have addressed the situation," said the memo.

Since Saturday's rally, which resulted in three deaths, North American Roofing Services' Facebook page has been bombarded with negative comments and people calling for O'Brien's firing.

"Your employees represent your company. Your customers would not feel safe having neo-nazi's and white supremacists working on their homes. Please be aware that your response to this will critically affect your company. Tampa is watching," wrote one commenter.


O'Brien's termination follows his arrest, along with two others, at the Unite the Right white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. The 44-year-old told the Times that his arrest had nothing to do with the rally, but was related to him being caught with a concealed weapon, which is a misdemeanor.
It's also worth noting that O'Brien is the author of a blog called "Bacon, Books & Bullets," where he touched on claims like black mothers are responsible for high incarceration rates of black men, climate change isn't real, and Democrats are "violent extremists."

In a post released just a week before last weekend's rally titled "Motivated to Fight: Southerners are reaching the point of no-return," O'Brien vented that "The Southerner is grabbing his rifle off the mantle," and "After years of suffering depredations, the Southerner is now preparing for a fight. If history is our guide, this will not end well for the Left."