Gun shop that flew flag upside down apologizes, fires employee

Hampel’s Key & Lockshop in Traverse City, Mich. has issued a public apology for an election reaction that spurred outrage, protest and a call to boycott.

Hampel’s flew the American flag upside down last Wednesday, and Rod Nyland — a 25 year employee of the store — told a reporter that the upside flag was meant as “an international signal for distress and we feel our country is in distress because the n—– got in.”

In a public letter the staff and owners of Hampel’s said that Nyland has been “dismissed“.

“We repudiate these acts and statements,“ the group said. “… We defend the honor of the American flag, the dignity of the office of the President of the United States, and we respect the integrity of President-elect Obama.”

On Thursday six year-old Jayla Elsenheimer was among a group that picketed Hampel’s. She carried a sign that read, “Shame on you.”

“It was a topic in a lot of the upper elementary classes today,” Jayla’s mother Angel Elsenheimer, who works at TCAPS Montessori school told the Record Eagle,“I think it’s a terrible, sad thing to not only see in the paper, but hear on the radio, and children don’t understand in a lot of cases. Trying to explain that kind of hate is sad and challenging.”