Family of viral video of woman expressing racist slurs speaks out: "It's ugly, when is it going to stop?"
The video of a woman yelling expletives and derogatory slurs to a Latino family at an apartment complex went viral on the social media platform, TikTok. It had nearly a million views before TikTok decided to remove the video due to "harassment and bullying, nudity and body exposure."
CBS News Colorado was able to speak to the family who experienced this incident in hopes to spread awareness.
In the video, the lady is seen asking if they have a key fob, she then goes on to say, "you have a fob, two people… you have a Mexican *beep* party at the pool, trash."
The family says this was not the only time she had asked them for a key fob.
According to the police report by Lakewood police, the woman in the video was asking their party if they had a key fob because the complex had been dealing with a lot of "pool hoppers" lately. However, according to the parties targeted, the lady did not ask any other families at the pool for that information, just them. They felt targeted due to the color of their skin.
"I think the issue is that she was racially profiling us, basically it made us feel like we weren't good enough to live in the same apartment complex that she and her boyfriend lived in," expressed Jada, who was part of the family targeted.
Jada's boyfriend and his brother rent at the apartment complex. They decided to have a barbecue on July 2 and invited family and friends over.
Dawn, who presented herself as Jada's grandmother was around the clubhouse doors at the apartment complex when it all went down.
"And I am looking out the door and all I see is a commotion and as a grandmother, I think I need to make sure my granddaughters are alright or my daughter who is sick, so I run out the door to see what is going on and people are arguing," said Dawn.
The altercation quickly escalated and both parties began to insult each other, but the white woman in the video began to express herself with derogatory slurs toward the family, according to the video and to the parties involved.
"She was saying, '*beep* Mexicans and go back to Denver' and she was saying, 'you're trash, you're trash and you're going to be trash, she was literally pointing out at kids and doing that," expressed Dawn.
According to the Lakewood police report none of the parties on the scene wished to press charges at the time of the incident. One of the friend's invited to the barbecue by the family, Melanie Rangel-Olmedo was sitting right next to the 14-year-old who was recording the incident on her phone. She says the white lady snatched it from her hands as soon as she realized she was recording her, as seen on the video. She doesn't think the incident was handled fairly.
"If I were to put my hands on her like I wanted to when she came up to my friends daughter, because I am a minority because I have tattoos, you (police) would have put me in handcuffs without second guessing an investigation," expressed Rangel-Olmedo.
CBS News Colorado reached out to the woman in the video and have yet to hear back.
The phone number she provided on the police report says it is no longer in service.
Police said they could not take her in without a thorough investigation first, according to the family. The family on the lease that decided to do a barbecue for their family received a demand for compliance or possession with statuary mediation advisement letter from the apartment complex in Lakewood.
