A former ESPN reporter was criticized on Twitter for slamming protesters who tried to storm a gated community near his California home — days after supporting the efforts of Minneapolis demonstrators who ignited a building.
Chris Palmer, an NBA reporter, on Saturday blasted the “animals” who destroyed a Starbucks, tried to trespass into a nearby “sister community” and gathered outside his building.
“Tear up your own shit,” Palmer said in a series of emotional tweets.
“Don’t come to where we live at and tear our neighborhood up. We care about our community. If you don’t care about yours I don’t give a shit.”
Palmer said his community was covered in graffiti and that several of the demonstrators were arrested without ever making it into his building.
“These people had no pride and weren’t protesters,” he wrote.
But shortly after firing off the explosive tweets, Palmer was accused of doing an about-face when an earlier tweet was revealed.
On Thursday, in a since-deleted tweet, Palmer tweeted a photo of a Minneapolis building ablaze and wrote, “Burn that s— down. Burn it all down.”
“When you encouraged people to do this stuff I’m guessing you meant as long as it wasn’t where you lived??” one person commented on his Saturday post.
Another user said, “It’s OK to burn down other areas but soon as they come to your area is a no-no, well tuff.”
On Sunday, Palmer appeared to address the criticism.
“When I went out to talk to the mob. They asked me where Melrose was because they saw the looting on Twitter,” he tweeted.
“If you don’t know where Melrose is that means you came from a long ass way away. It’s 2 blocks away.”