Life Time Fitness has fired Dirty Kanza founder Jim Cummins after a social media post about an officer-involved fatal shooting of a Black man.
CyclingTips broke the story Saturday, saying Cummins got in hot water after commenting on a video demonstrating an altercation from two years ago between law enforcement and Daniel Clary, who resisted arrest and shot an officer before escaping. Cummins told people to watch the video and unfriend him if they felt the shooting of Rayshard Brooks was not justified. Brooks was shot dead in Atlanta earlier this month after failing a field sobriety test, resisting arrest, grabbing an officer’s taser and firing it at least twice before he was shot three times in the back.
Life Time issued a statement Saturday night, saying Cummins’ post was “inappropriate and insensitive, and we stand against it as an organization.” Cummins was fired as the result of an internal investigation.
Cummins has not commented. He and a team of riders had built the DK from a race involving less than 40 riders in the first year to a family of races bringing close to 4,000 people from around the world to Emporia.
The Dirty Kanza had been moved from the end of May to Sept. 10-13 because of coronavirus. The event had come under scrutiny earlier this year after some Native Americans said the name was a slur against the Kaw Nation. Kaw leadership issued a statement supporting the race name, which stayed in place.
Cummins had just been placed on the Ingram’s Magazine list of 50 Kansans You Should Know for his work developing the DK and his mission of making the Flint Hills a “top cycling vacation destination.”
We will have more developments as they come out.
Statement from Life Time Fitness on the firing of Jim Cummins
“Following a review of the post made by the founder of Dirty Kanza, we found it to be inappropriate and insensitive, and we stand against it as organization. As an outcome of our investigation, we have parted ways with this individual.
“One of our core principles is to provide safe, trusting and respectful environments for our all members, customers and team members, while rejecting all actions of prejudice or injustice toward others.
“We will continue to take all matters like this with the same degree of seriousness by conducting thorough reviews and acting any time we believe our company principles have been violated.”
