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University Hospital nurse resigns over racist Facebook comment

Posted at 1:35 PM, Apr 23, 2014
and last updated 2014-04-23 15:35:02-04

SALT LAKE CITY — A statement from University Hospital indicates a hospital employee has resigned after hospital officials learned of “a series of disturbing and offensive comments posted online by the individual.”

On Tuesday, FOX 13 interviewed Todd Shrum, who worked as a nurse at the hospital and admitted to posting the phrase “Tongan trash…kill them all” on Facebook.

“The only thing I can realize is that I used a very poor choice of words. I shouldn’t have said that and that people would infer I was talking about the entire Tongan race. I was talking about the gang members only,” Shrum said. “I sincerely, sincerely apologize.”

Shrum said his comment was a knee-jerk reaction after a Tongan gang member was shot and killed at the federal courthouse Monday.

Shrum had already been placed on administrative leave before he resigned.

Click here to read more from our previous story.