City employee suspended for these two comments about a Muslim on Facebook

A city employee for Babylon, New York, has been suspended and is facing termination over two incendiary comments he made about a Muslim teenager on Facebook.

The comments from Andy Vita came after a video was posted on Facebook touting the accomplishments of Yasmin Zohny, an honor student at Lindenhurst High School. The 17-year-old is a Muslim and wears a traditional head scarf in the video.

Screenshots of the comments floated around on social media. The first read, "F**k you take it to f******* trash bag off your f***** head," and the second read, "F**k this mutt."

Vita, an equipment operator for the town, had no comment to a local news station after the messages were made public.

“This is one really sick person that needs to be held accountable for his actions,” town supervisor Rich Schaeffer told CBS New York. “There is going to be consequences to what you say. People have to realize when you’re posting something on Facebook of social media, it’s like putting it on a billboard on the LIE." LIE is short for Long Island Expressway.

Schaeffer said that Vita would be "mandated to apologize in-person to this impressive young woman and go through sensitivity training so that we can determine the cause of the hate-driven anger he displayed in his posting."

He also said he would be offering her an internship at the City of Babylon for the summer after she graduates. After the comments surfaced, the school community came to the defense of Zohny, who will attend The University of Texas at Austin.