While Jimmy John’s usually uses social media to tout its “freaky fast” delivery time, the company issued a loose, unauthored statement via Facebook on Monday, asserting that “the actions in the video are absolutely unacceptable and do not represent the Jimmy John’s brand or the local franchise ownership.”
The video in question, which was recorded in Woodstock, Georgia, over the weekend, shows an employee wrapping a bread dough noose around his neck. The individual, referred to as “Jimmy Gallow,” is then “sentenced to death” in the seconds-long performance originally posted to Snapchat.
Many netizens called out the employees’ actions as a racist mockery of the historic lynching of Black Americans. Georgia politician Ryan Guillory Sr. was able to confirm via a store representative that the employees in the video, and at least one manager, had been fired.
At the same time, a number of netizens agreed with the Facebook post’s assertion that the individuals who filmed the video are not a reflection of the fast food chain as a whole. Many also claimed that the performance was not racist.
It’s unclear if the statement came from Jimmy John’s founder Jimmy John Liautaud, a trophy hunter who was recently featured in a Business Insider profile which detailed that his wife had donated $100,000 to US President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign.
Liautaud was also named as one of more than 200 members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force’s food and beverage industry advisory team, which is responsible, in part, for the federal government’s economic response to the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic.