Flint councilman refers to council president as Hitler, follows with Nazi salute

A Flint councilman referred to Flint City Council President Monica Galloway as Hitler then followed his comment with a Nazi salute.

Council Vice President and Finance Chair Eric Mays related Galloway to Hitler at a Jan. 14 council meeting.

"You ain't got to be like Hitler," Mays can be heard saying to Galloway near the 3:37.3 mark in the video recording of Tuesday's meeting, after Galloway called the meeting to order.

After refuting the reference, Mays can be heard continuing with the association, saying "You sound like it (Hitler) from where I'm at, what you want me to do?"

Mays immediately followed the comment by stomping his foot and putting his arm in the air in front of him with his hand up. Galloway tells Mays his time is up when he repeats the reference.

Shortly after the comments, Galloway moved the meeting along and Mays excused himself.

"What I can tell you is I was trying to bring order to the meeting and he didn't appreciate that," Galloway said in an interview with the Free Press. "In doing that, he correlated my behavior as a dictator behavior at that time and he deemed it appropriate to identify me with Hitler, if you will."

Mays said in an interview with the Free Press he has does not plan to issue an apology and does not regret his specific actions at the Jan. 14 meeting.

"I'll fight for my political career not to be keeled or dead with wrong. That's my goal, I'm an activist, I'm a councilman — I'm the people's councilman in my opinion," Mays said. "I'm going to fight if somebody in a influential leadership position tries to characterize me, tell me I'm wrong, portray me as ignorant, stereotype me, prejudice me, repeatedly, that person reminds me of a bad dictator. One of the worst dictators that I've seen is Hitler."

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Galloway said the cultural context of May's remarks didn't resonate with her in the moment as she was focused on proceeding with the meeting, but she later received calls from people within the community who shared the impact the remarks had on them.

"I apologize as the president of the council and the one who was chairing the meeting when that behavior was presented. I did speak to someone from the Jewish Federation as well as another person who was concerned. ... It is not about you using something to share you don't appreciate dictatorship, it's about the emotional string that that's attached to," Galloway said in a video recording of a special council meeting Jan. 15.

"It was inappropriate and I should have dealt with it and I didn't and so I say to this community: I apologize because that happened under my leadership and it should never have done so."

In the same recorded Jan. 15 meeting, Mays doubled down on his previous comments, saying that "when the time comes, I'll apologize for myself if need be" near the 20-minute mark of the Jan. 15 meeting recording.

“I’m here to tell you if it’s Mr. Neeley (Flint City Mayor Sheldon Neeley) I’ll do the same gesture to prove that somebody is acting as a dictator. I can emphasize dictator and wrongfulness without being an advocate of genocide. So if all of this that I did, and it wasn’t no fun, it’s serious business I’m making a point. When I can’t speak verbally, I’ll speak with sign language.”

Neeley could not immediately be reached for comment.

Galloway addressed Mays' comments, apologizing for his added remarks on the subject.

"I have asked my colleagues to hold me accountable as well to ensure there is consistently being fairness exhibited among this body," she said in the meeting. "And I am sorry to the community that instead of apologizing we make excuses fro the things that we are doing even though we know it is hurtful and could be seen as offensive."

Flint Jewish Confederation Executive Director Steven Low said he received calls and email from people and reached out to Galloway.

"We take very seriously anyone who trivializes or minimizes the Holocaust and Hitler and I'm very sad and disappointed — sad that Mr. Mays is either appallingly insensitive or so ignorant that he would make a comparison between the head of the city council and Hitler," Low said. "It's appalling, it's sad, it's insulting."

Low said he feels Mays owes an apology and it would not be out of line to remove him from the council based on his actions, which he said distract from the work that can and should be done in Flint.

"When you have this sort of ugly incident detracting from and distracting from the important business that needs to be done, it just reflects so poorly on Flint and we overlook what good there is and we keep from getting to the things that need to be done," Low said.

Meredith Spelbring is a news intern for the Detroit Free Press. Reach her at mspelbring@freepress.com or on Twitter @mere0415.