This New York man probably won’t get charged for his racist road rage rant. Facebook video posted July 18 shows a bald white man in sunglasses hurling racist slurs during a road rage incident. The other driver recorded the incident.
“Take your picture,” says the white man. “I’m calling you a n*****, too. N*ggy! Smile! Smile, n*****. Smile, n*****. You’re harassing me. Put it on the tape, okay. Okay, n*****? N***** boy. Yeah, keep taking my picture.”
He accuses the other driver of harassing him, and cutting him off in traffic.
“This happened in #DeerPark on my way to drop my son off…smh,” wrote the Facebook account user Bentley Sanon.
That’s probably not illegal, at least not by itself, said Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy Sini. His office and local police previously said they hadn’t gotten a complaint about the incident, but he and his people decided to review the viral footage anyway to see if any crime was committed.
“Although the activity is extremely disturbing and offensive, it does not seem to constitute a crime, at least without further evidence of some other action taken by the individual making the comments,” he told Newsday.
He emphasized that this case doesn’t have a bearing on other allegations. Just because this racist rant isn’t illegal doesn’t mean others wouldn’t result in prosecution.
“There may be circumstances that actually would allow for a charge,” he said.
Footage went viral mid-July. Paramount Chimney & Gutter, Corp., identified the man as a former employee, and washed their hands of him. In several Facebook posts, they wrote he was fired almost a year before.
“Paramount Chimney would never condone this behavior!!!” they wrote.
The company identified him as Brett Caiet, according to Intercept columnist Shaun King.
Caiet could not be reached for comment.
Another racist rant led to legal trouble for another white New York man. Edward Ruggiero was charged with third-degree menacing as a hate crime. This defendant was recorded on the Long Island Railroad calling a black woman a “monkey motherfucker.” He ended up pleading guilty to lesser charges of aggravated harassment and disorderly conduct, and was ordered to pay a $250 fine and take a 12-week bias incident course.
[Screengrab via Bentley Sanon]