Scandal: A US official resigned after being disguised as a "Katrina victim"

January 26, 2019

This is Michael Ertel, who had to leave his post after his black-painted photographs and a controversial inscription on his shirt were revealed.

Florida State Secretary Michael Ertel resigned this week after their release. pictures of him in which he appears with his face painted black and dressed as a victim of Hurricane Katrina in a Halloween party of the year 2005.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis lamented the resignation of Ertel, a veteran of the army, saying he had done a good job, but badured that his administration wanted to avoid "Secondary controversies".

Ertel, 49, took office for 16 days after being appointed by Governor DeSantis, who took office Jan. 8 to replace Republican Rick Scott.

In the photos, which have been published, you can see Ertel, then 35, Disguised as an African American, wearing a purple shirt with the words "Katrina victim", the hurricane that devastated the city of New Orleans in 2005 and left more than 1,800 dead.

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Note that the photos date from October 2005, just two months after the hurricane and that tens of thousands of people were still living in shelters, they generated repudiation in social networks after their viralization.

"When an elected one with a painted face, hoops and scarf disguises himself as a" Katrina sufferer ", he's not just insensitive to the victims of the hurricane, a politician who plays the minstrel, a caricature racial, the symptom of an epidemic social disease", tweeted the president of the National Association for the Progress of People of Color (NAACP), Cornell Brooks.

Tallahbadee Democrat, the newspaper that published the images and sent them to the Florida governorate, said Ertel had declined to comment on the case.