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Video: Lime-A-Rita Drinker Shouting Racial Slurs Gets Tossed Off L Train
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Oct 9, 2017
Modified Oct 10, 2017
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By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Oct 9, 2017
Modified Oct 10, 2017
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A professed graduate of NYU Law School was caught on video shouting the n-word on a Brooklyn-bound L train over the weekend, prompting some fellow riders to forcibly remove him from the train, and leading one woman to pelt him with a cup of soup.
In the video, a man holding a Bud Light Lime-A-Rita can be heard repeatedly yelling the slur, and explaining that "I talk shit because I know I can, because I'm a lawyer. I went to NYU law. Fuck you!" As the racist tirade continues, he is confronted by several straphangers, who eventually push him onto the platform at Bedford Avenue. He's hit with the soup at the 1:48 mark, and soon after someone appears to toss a glass bottle in his vicinity (it was a "near-miss," according to one witness.)
Joshua R. Pyne, who shot the video, tells us the incident occurred Saturday afternoon at around 2 p.m., after the man had a "spat about personal space" with a group of young black men. The video begins a few seconds after he shouted "stupid n-gger" at the group, who departed at 1st Avenue, Pyne said.
"Understandably, this woman of color and a couple other folks as you can see in the video, call the guy out," Pyne told Gothamist. "This guy starts caterwauling about his 1st Amendment rights and whatnot. The guy didn't seem to be falling-down drunk, but was ...clearly belligerent."
The situation escalates as the train moves through the tunnel, with one woman calling him a racist, to which he responds that he's a "legal scholar." The straphangers also prevented the man from taking his bag—"we all stood in front of it, neither touching it, nor him," per Pyne—further incensing him as he was pushed out of the subway.
"After Bedford, the woman [who first called him out] kind of broke down. She and the larger gentlemen in black embraced and there was a good sense that social justice had been served," the tipster added. "We, the handful of folks that had witnessed the entire thing from the start, wished the guy well and hoped he'd have a better weekend, as the woman got off at Lorimer, and was gone before things settled. The whole thing happened really fast."
A cop was reportedly on the scene at Bedford Avenue when the train pulled away. A spokesperson with the NYPD said there were no records of anyone who matched his description being arrested at the station.
Tagged
bedford avenue
deplatforming
MTA
racist
subway
original
Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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