The spokesman for rising Republican star Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) allegedly compared two black people to zoo animals in one of several racially charged Facebook posts, ThinkProgress reported Thursday.
Schock’s communications director Benjamin Cole posted a series of videos to his Facebook page in October 2013 that mocked black people walking outside his Washington, D.C. apartment, according to screenshots of the posts obtained by ThinkProgress.
The news website reported that one post, which included a video of a woman who appeared to be arguing with someone off-screen, read “so apparently the closing of the National Zoo has forced the animals to conduct their mating rituals on my street. #gentrifytoday Pt. 1.”
The race of the woman is unclear in the screenshot.
A second post reportedly read “#gentrifytoday Pt. 3. This is where she finds another glass bottle, and breaks it on their stoop to use as a weapon.” The race of the woman is also unclear from that screenshot.
In a more recent post dated Jan. 29, Cole allegedly described an experience he had with a black police officer when he went to file an assault report against a black woman he said threw an elbow at him on the street.
“‘Do you have a problem talking to me?’ That’s what the Black Metro police officer said to me when he began asking me to explain what happened,” Cole wrote, according to a screenshot of the post obtained by ThinkProgress.
Cole did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TPM on Thursday.
The alleged Facebook posts added to an already bad week for Cole, whose attempt to keep photos of Schock’s lavish new office decor under wraps went viral Tuesday.
Washington Post reporter Ben Terris reported in detail on Cole’s attempt to quash his story after Schock’s interior designer took him on a tour of the congressman’s flashy new space.
“[Schock is] happy to talk to you, just not about the office,” Cole told Terris at one point. “I’m really sorry and want you to know this is not fun for me.”
Schock denied that the decor was “Downton Abbey”-inspired Wednesday in an interview with ABC News. He explained that he simply wasn’t the type of guy to settle for the plain, green walls in his colleagues’ offices.
