Manchester, NH Alderman Claims Alec Baldwin Knew Prop Firearm That Killed Woman on Film Set Was Loaded
Joseph Kelly Levasseur Has a History Of Inflammatory Comments — OPINION
MANCHESTER, NH — Alderman at Large Joseph Kelly Levasseur posted his opinion that Alex Baldwin “Knew” that the prop gun that discharged on the Rust movie set that killed the cinematographer and wounded the director was loaded when he aimed and fired. Levasseur posted “He knew” above an anti-Baldwin meme, despite the lack of evidence in any news report on the day of the tragedy, when Levasseur made his post, or in subsequent days indicating that the actor knew that the gun was loaded.
In fact, all news coverage of the even has stated that Baldwin did NOT know that the gun was loaded, and that he had been told that it was “Cold” — movie set lingo for an unloaded gun.
Levasseur is a rabid Donald Trump supporter, and Alex Baldwin was Trump’s bête noire as he won an Emmy Award for playing Trump on Saturday Night Live.
Lemming-like Trump-follower Levasseur showed himself to every bit as cold as the notoriously uncompassionate Trump. Levasseur posted a doctored photo of Baldwin, wearing a T-shirt hocked by Donald Trump, Jr.
Levasseur’s conduct unbecoming a Manchester alderman, let alone a member of the human race, is old hat by now, given free reign by a Board of Mayor and Alderman that refuses to discipline him.
On June 20th, 2018, the Queen City’s “Irresponsible Chatterbox” title holder (heavyweight division) tweeted that FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok should be “tried for treason and hung by a rope and no I’m not kidding.”
Allegedly Racist Comment
In 2020, Joe Kelly Levasseur called an African American activist “zipperhead.”
The actual text was, “Get a job you zipperhead.”
At the time, there was a debate over whether Levasseur’s use of the term “zipperhead” was racist. The slur typically is directed towards people of East Asian descent, as it was a term that came out of the Vietnam War.
Zipperhead can also refer to body bags, as there are body bags designs referred to as “Zipperhead” and “Double Zipperhead.” Thus, the term became slang term for a drug dealer during the crack cocaine crisis of the 1980s and ’90s, that saw a upsurge in violence that led to the killings of many drug dealers, drug purchasers, and random passersby.
A dead drug dealer was put in a zipperhead bag. Thus, zipperhead referred to a drug dealer (as it was only a matter of time in those super-violent days) and drug users before the bodybag would be zipped over their head, from either being shot or dying from an overdose.
The phrase, “Get a job” hurled at People of Color was so ubiquitous a racist phrase, that Bruce Hornsby referenced it in his classic song “The Way It Is.”
Standing in line, marking time
Waiting for the welfare dime
’Cause they can’t buy a job
The man in the silk suit hurries by
As he catches the poor old ladies’ eyes
Just for fun he says, “get a job”
Hornsby’s lyric specifically mentions the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned racial discrimination in employment.
Well, they passed a law in ‘64
To give those who ain’t got a little more
But it only goes so far
Because the law don’t change another’s mind
When all it sees at the hiring time
Is the line on the color bar, no, no
In my opinion, I now believe that Joe Kelly Levasseur’s statement “Get a job you zipperhead” is racist as it plays on the twin tropes of the lazy, shiftless black man and on black men as drug dealers and drug users.
That remark and his online incendiary online behavior during the May and June 2020 demonstrations by Black Lives Matter and its supporters led Mayor Joyce Craig and 7 of his 13 fellow aldermen to call for his resignation.
Attorney General’s Report
It is hard to understand how Levasseur, an attorney at law who is a member of the New Hampshire Bar, gets away with it. The New Hampshire Bar did nothing to discipline him when the New Hampshire Attorney General investigation into his charges of misconduct against Manchester Police Chief David Mara and another MPD officer concluded that they were “unfounded.”
When a District Court judge dismissed Joe Kelly Levasseur’s claim he was unbiased in a zoning case that led to years of litigation, ruling that he was, indeed, biased and thus untruthful, again, the New Hampshire Bar did nothing. It’s hard to believe that a licensed lawyer can be found to be untruthful in a court of law and the state bar association does nothing.
It is the behavior of the Joe Kelly Levasseurs of the world, and of his hero Donald Trump, that makes one wonder whether the rule of the law they seemingly flaunt really exists at all. I believe Levasseur will continue to flaunt the rule of the law and standards of simple common decency as long as his consequences have no action.
