After a heated exchange, a Virginia man was arrested and charged for hurling racial insults at a veteran Charlotte, North Carolina news reporter.
On Oct. 8, WBTV reporter Steve Crump was in Charleston, South Carolina covering Hurricane Matthew. After wrapping up an interview, he encountered 21-year-old Brian Eybers, who was filming a video on his iPad at the time. In a recent interview with The Charlotte Observer, Crump believed the man was doing commentary on the neighborhood before the incident occurred.
“Then he starts off saying,” Crump recalled, ” ‘There’s a Black guy walking around here. No he’s a slave. No he’s the n-word.’ ”
After Eybers made these comments, Crump turned to him and asked him to repeat himself. At this point, the man continues to antagonize the reporter claiming the Constitution grants him the right to call Crump the n-word and a former slave.
Then, there is an exchange over the Ninth Amendment (part of the Bill of Rights) and the 14th Amendment (person born in America is American), which prompted more racial backlash.
“You’re a f—— idiot,” Eybers replies. “So you really are a n—– then.”
Crump told the Observer that he has interviewed members of the Ku Klux Klan and “none of them have ever called me the n-word. We may not see eye-to-eye on racial issues, but not a single Klansman I’ve interviewed in 35 years of doing this stuff has stooped to this level of vulgarity.”
Eybers was arrested earlier this week for disorderly conduct and possession of drug paraphernalia — a glass pipe used to smoke crack, per police and the Observer. He is currently held at the Charleston County Detention Center.
