Candidate compares activists to Hitler
Hommel posted links, photos on Facebook about Stoneman Douglas teenagers
PLANTATION – The teenage activists from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are no heroes, in the view of one city council candidate. She used Facebook to compare them to Adolf Hitler, communists and actors.
Although the posts no longer appear, Ximena Hommel posted links and memes about Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg, who gained national attention after the Parkland school shooting killed 17 students.
The posts included:
Feb. 21: A link to a story about David Hogg reading “it’s all theater” and suggesting he was rehearsing scripted lines.
March 25: Side-by-side photos of Hogg with his right arm raised in the air pictured alongside a saluting Hitler, with the text “Hitler Youth student gun control march invades Washington.”
March 25: A photo depicting Hogg and activist Emma Gonzalez with Russian-style hats with the words “Give us your guns, comrades.”
On Jan. 24, Hommel posted a picture of President Barack Obama with text that said, “A man twice elected because of the color of his skin rather than the content of his character.”
Hommel said she has no regrets about the posts. She said opponents have attacked her for being a Republican, and she’s not apologizing for re-posting memes and
links she didn’t create but simply repeated.
“I shared it and I made it public,” she said.
“I posted it from other pages because I don’t believe [Hogg and Gonzalez] represent the victims of the school. Go talk to the real victims,” she said. Hogg and Gonzalez are “a misrepresentation of the Parkland survivors. … I don’t like they are portraying themselves as the victims ’cause they’re not.”
As far as Obama, she said she doesn’t think he was elected fairly.
Hommel is running in the Group 2 race in November against three other candidates.
Candidate Denise Horland said she saw the Facebook page before the posts disappeared, though Hommel said she didn’t remove them.
“I have seen her posts,” Horland said. “They concern me greatly. They are not my viewpoints. Besides the racism and the hate I’ve seen on them, so much is not based on fact. It concerns me someone [who] is running for office would willfully put out information that is not based on fact. … There is a lot of propaganda memes in there. We have to be very careful where people get their information.”
Another candidate, Rico Petrocelli, said his grandson was a junior at the Parkland school and heard the gunshots on Valentine’s Day.
“I don’t think anybody at Stoneman Douglas should be attacked,” Petrocelli said. “There’s no reason to attack these kids. That’s bullying.”
Candidate Jesse Walaschek said he’s seen other Facebook posts from Hommel, including one on a city-related page where she blamed Democrats for the homeless problem. He said he hadn’t seen her posts about the Stoneman Douglas students but didn’t fault them entirely.
Hommel said she doesn’t hate anybody and is “running for the right reasons. I’m Joe Schmo trying to make things right.”
“I question his integrity,” he said of recent graduate Hogg. Still, “the whole thing is a total tragedy. Everyone else is heartbroken over the whole thing,” Walaschek said.
Hommel is a former Plantation police officer who now owns a dry cleaning business in Coral Springs.
She spent two years at the department until she became pregnant and eventually filed charges of gender discrimination.
Former Police Chief Larry Massey said Hommel was not fired, but public records show she agreed to a termination during her probationary period “for failing to meet standards.”
The 2005 agreement called for a payment of $50,000 and for Hommel not to disparage the city.
She also signed an agreement saying she would “never re-apply for employment with the city” — but said she doesn’t consider work as a council member as a legal problem.
Her husband, Martin, is a retired Plantation police officer. A police union representative declined comment. The union endorsed a candidate only in the mayor’s race.