An angry protest about a proposed ‘sanctuary city’ measure led to a lot of laughs for one man at a city council meeting in Tuscon, Ariz.
When a protester wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat and a pink “Best” tank top at the Tuesday meeting started yelling “respect our laws” while holding up a sign saying “Respect our laws or we will deport you,” a man wearing a green polo shirt in the row in front of her started laughing uncontrollably.
He continued laughing hysterically as the woman and another protester were escorted out of the meeting — and his amusement quickly went viral. A video of the incident taken by KVOA reporter Nick VinZant had been retweeted almost 8,000 times and racked up over 39,000 likes by Wednesday afternoon.
#GreenShirtGuy was later identified as an activist and comedian named Alex Kack.
Kack told the website Mashable he was laughing at “just how absurd it really all was.”
“Who has the time in their day to come into a public space just to spread hatred and negativity? Like honestly what happened that made them so ridiculous and hateful?,” Kack said.
The council had voted to put the sanctuary city on the November ballot because it was legally required to, VinZant noted. Proponents of the measure gathered 18,000 signatures for the initiative, more than the required minimum. Kack works on the sanctuary city initiative for the Peoples Defense Initiative group.
VinZant also said that the protesters — one of whom was filming herself — didn’t attempt to speak during the public comments portion of the meeting.
Kack told Mashable the response to his laughing on social media had been “absolutely surreal.”
“Patton Oswalt tweeted about it and I love Patton Oswalt,” he said. “Doesn’t get any better than that right?”
