SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A Northern California man whose appointment last year to a county commission after posing for photos with a group of Proud Boys stirred controversy resigned this week ahead of his planned removal by local elected leaders.
El Dorado County Supervisor George Turnboo, who had nominated Chris Cockrell to the county’s Veterans Affairs Commission in January 2021, placed an item on Tuesday’s consent agenda to rescind his appointment effective immediately.
Cockrell instead resigned from the commission Monday.
No explanation accompanied Turnboo’s motion to remove Cockrell, an Army veteran and local business owner who had been appointed to a four-year term set to end in 2025.
“We cannot share any information at this time,” Mark Treat, Turnboo’s assistant, said in an emailed response to The Sacramento Bee on Wednesday.
Cockrell’s selection to the commission in early 2021 prompted local debate due to an incident a few weeks prior.
While dressed as Santa Claus, Cockrell in December 2020 appeared briefly alongside members from a local chapter of the Proud Boys – a far-right hate group that espouses white supremacist ideologies – as they crashed a Toys for Tots charity drive on Placerville’s Main Street.
When the group, clad in black-and-orange clothing including some in hoodies that read “Hangtown Proud Boys,” gathered for a photo near the city’s central, wooden bell tower, Cockrell in a Santa suit posed near the front of the group.
As the Proud Boys posed for another photo, this time holding the “OK” symbol – a hand gesture co-opted in recent years by white supremacist groups – Cockrell appeared to do the same, video of the incident posted online showed.
One month after the incident, which led Placerville’s then-mayor to publicly denounce the Proud Boys, Turnboo nominated Cockrell to the veterans affairs position.
County supervisors then received nearly 200 emails of public comment opposing the appointment, most in response to the toy drive incident. It’s unclear whether the Santa incident or its aftermath played a role in Cockrell’s ouster.
Cockrell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A few El Dorado County residents during this week’s meeting expressed support for Cockrell’s removal.
Eric Nelson of Placerville, a Marine Corps veteran, shared a screenshot via written public comment showing an email he alleges Cockrell sent him in April. In it, Cockrell allegedly wrote that Nelson “brought discredit to every Marine I’ve ever known in my life.”
Nelson said the message came amid an exchange between the two regarding the toy drive incident, and that Cockrell also told Nelson via email that he was planning to start his own Christmas toy drive to compete with Toys for Tots this year.
Toys for Tots is run by the Marine Corps Reserve.
Nelson said Cockrell’s “demeaning” of the Marine Corps shows him to be unfit to serve on the commission.
Others opposed the removal, with some asking for transparency as to why Turnboo sought Cockrell’s removal. Turnboo did not speak on the matter during Tuesday’s meeting.
Was ‘Hangtown Santa’ incident a misunderstanding?
Turnboo, in the weeks between his nomination and the board’s scheduled vote on the appointment early last year, defended Cockrell. In a statement, Turnboo called the incident a misunderstanding and wrote that Cockrell had been “prodded” by the Proud Boys into making the “OK” symbol.
Cockrell during public comment at a meeting last year defended himself by saying he was posing for photos indiscriminately that day, with anyone who asked him to. John Poimiroo, a former member of the veterans commission, also called in and said that though Cockrell is “very conservative,” he has “no connection” to the Proud Boys.
Another county resident, though, shared screenshots last year purportedly showing Cockrell’s account on the alt-right social media platform Parler. It appeared to show that Cockrell and an account called “Proud Boys Hangtown — Placerville El Dorado County” were following each other and had both been created in November 2020.
The Bee could not verify claims regarding Cockrell’s alleged Parler account, as the platform had been deactivated by Amazon Web Services by that time in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol.
Despite public pushback, county supervisors confirmed Cockrell’s appointment to the four-year commission seat by a vote of 4-1.
Cockrell ran in California’s March 2020 primary election as a write-in candidate for Turnboo’s District 2 supervisor seat, finishing with 230 votes of the nearly 16,000 cast.
He has been an outspoken critic of local and state government actions throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
In a public Instagram post this February, Cockrell accused El Dorado County officials of “bullying” Apple Bistro, a Placerville-area restaurant that faced a court injunction after repeatedly flouting COVID-19 violations and operating without a valid health license.
“If the government ever recommends closing again I will fight to the death for anyone that will stand up like this business did!” Cockrell wrote.
