A school district official in Connecticut resigned after a viral video surfaced in which she allegedly targeted an African American supermarket employee with a very loud and very public racist tirade.
According to the Hartford Courant, the video appears to show a woman identified by Hamden School District officials as Corinne Terrone using the n-word over and over again as she accosts the man with a shocking verbal barrage in front of multiple other shoppers.
In the video–posted to Facebook via journalist Mario Boone–the woman and the man appear to be engaged in conversation when she shouts and tells him to “sit down” while using an additional expletive about his mother. The man says something back and the woman replies with a series of racial slurs.
“Well, obviously, that’s right, because you’re a fucking n-word,” she screams, “That’s why–because you’re a fucking n-word [inaudible].”
A statement on the school district’s website details the incident–including allegations that Terrone later spit on or at the black man she targeted with her shouted invective:
We have become aware of video footage that appears to show an employee in our district engaged in abhorrent conduct. Specifically, the video appears to show the employee repeatedly calling an African-American man the N-word in a supermarket in East Haven. The video also appears to show the Hamden employee spitting at the aforementioned African-American male as he was walking away from the employee. It also appears that the employee’s children witnessed her conduct.
School administrators also claimed to have filed a child protective services report with the Nutmeg State Division for Children, Youth and Families report because Terrone’s “children were present” during the incident, according to the statement.
The district said that Terrone was scheduled to meet with school officials before quitting on her own accord.
“While it appears as though this happened after work hours on Friday evening, the Nutmeg State Human Resource Director contacted the employee and arranged an investigatory meeting with her,” the school district’s statement reads. “Shortly after final arrangements were made for the investigatory meeting, the employee rendered her resignation effective immediately.”
Local officials and authorities condemned the activity in the video.
“What I saw was vile and shocking,” Hamden Mayor Curt Leng told the Courant. “While I am disgusted and disheartened seeing such hateful behavior, wildly unacceptable anywhere, I am thankful for the swift and effective actions taken by our school system to address this head on and make clear that hate and violence will not be tolerated.”
The East Haven Police Department also suggested the video depicted a hate crime.
“We are in touch with Shoprite and are looking to get a better understanding of what took place last night,” said East Haven Police spokesperson Joseph Murgo in a statement provided to the media. “At this time, we have not been contacted by anybody directly involved in this matter. We are urging any potential victims of last night’s incident to contact us so we can investigate this matter further. Speech like this has no place in today’s society and nobody deserves to be spit at or called racist names.”
[Image via screengrab/Mario Boone/Facebook]
Editor’s note: this story has been amended post-publication for clarity and accuracy.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
