Video shows Middletown couple make racist remarks to landscapers
By Evan Sobol and Eliza Kruczynski
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MIDDLETOWN, Connecticut (WFSB) — A video that circulated on social media showed a Middletown couple make racist remarks to landscapers, the city’s mayor said.
The video was sent to Channel 3 earlier this week.
“I was thinking that she was going to ask us for work or do something in her yard,” said Jose Martin. “As soon as I saw her cussing us out, I grabbed my phone right away. I said ‘Okay, this is going to be a problem.’”
Martin is the owner of J. Martin Landscaping.
He said he and his brother were cutting trees and cleaning up a customer’s lawn when the unidentified couple confronted them for making too much noise.
“J. Martin Landscaping likes to video people that complain that they have made noise all f****** day,” the woman could be heard saying in the video.
“You keep wanting to make noise in the neighborhood? We don’t do that s*** here,” the man said later in the video.
The couple could be heard yelling insults and slurs at the men.
“This is why we need a border wall right here,” the man said.
The woman asked several times if one of the workers was “here legally.”
“Do you have a visa? Do you have a visa? You don’t even have a visa to be here, do you?” the woman said.
Martin said he and his brother are both from Puerto Rico.
He said he stayed quiet the whole time, which he said is the best thing to do in those situations, as he recorded what the two neighbors had to say.
“I always stay quiet because it was not worth it to go back and forth with them,” Martin said.
Middletown Mayor Ben Florsheim addressed the video in a letter Wednesday.
“Like many of you, I was horrified to see the video making the rounds on Facebook of José Martín and his staff being barraged with insults and racist remarks by two people who live in Middletown,” Florsheim said.
Florsheim said his staff reached out to Martin and offered apologies for how he was treated.
City officials checked with Middletown police to see if any action can be taken against the couple.
Middletown police say they are working with the state’s attorney’s office and reviewing the video, but so far no charges have been filed against the couple.
“Let me be clear, we don’t tolerate this type of behavior in Middletown, and it doesn’t represent who we work to be as a community,” Florsheim said.
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