08/17/2017

By: John MacKenzie, Staff Reporter

Gwinnett County Judge Jim Hinkle as been suspended for Facebook posts in which he compared Antifa protesters of Confederate statues to members of ISIS.

Judge Hinkle called protesters opposing a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E Lee in Charlottesville, Va., “snowflakes.” He said they had “no concept of history” and should “leave history alone.”

In a follow-up post, he likened taking down Confederate statues to ISIS’s destruction of historic sites and artifacts in the Middle East.

Hinkle was suspended by Chief Magistrate Judge Kristina Hammer Blum, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday.

“After reviewing the Facebook posts you brought to my attention this morning, I have suspended Judge Hinkle effective immediately while I consider the appropriate final action,” Blum said in an email.

Judge Hinkle told the Journal-Constitution that he didn’t “see anything controversial” about what he wrote on Facebook, adding that “with the way things are going in the world today, I guess everything’s controversial.”