A man in Maryland encountered a racist road rage incident last week on his way home from a job interview. And rather than confronting his fellow driver, he simply kept calm and recorded what unfolded.
Crispin Cole is a 35-year-old who recently obtained his MBA and is in pursuit of a job with a government agency or an international non-governmental organization. As he drove home from a job interview Wednesday, Feb. 13, he wound up getting yelled at by a white driver who shouted obscenities at him — including calling him the n-word — and threatened his life.
“I mean I didn’t get upset. I just wanted to document it, because I’m like this happens too many times. I want to document this one,” Cole tells WUSA9.
Cole said he stopped at a red light several car lengths back that day.
“The car behind me, this gentleman, he got upset and he wanted me to move forward and started honking his horn. And I didn’t move, because it’s a red light. There’s no need to move,” Cole recalls.
He followed the driver to obtain his license plates, which Twitter users did their part to get for him after his video was posted online and went viral.
This racist white man cut off a black driver in Germantown, MD & then at the very next stop called him the “N” word & threatened to kill him. The man filed a report with the police but they’re doing nothing. Twitter, do your thing & identify this bigot.
— Simar (@sahluwal) February 16, 2019
“That was imperative because stuff like this happens. … I just wanted something to be done,” the driver explains.
Folks online got to work taking screenshots of the other driver’s face and looked up his license plate. Meanwhile, local authorities have launched an investigation of their own.
As for how the driver remained so calm after the raging driver got out of his Ford truck, approached Cole’s driver-side door, opened it and shouted, “You got a f—ing problem n—er? I’ll f—ing kill you, b—-! F— you!” Cole says there was no other option.
“You’re not supposed to react, because as a black man, I can’t do tit for tat. I can’t match his anger with my anger, because something could happen to me,” says Cole, who fled from the war in Sierra Leon 20 years ago and said he felt safe in America leaving his car door unlocked. “So, when somebody says that to me, it’s not about me. It’s about them. Probably having a bad day.”
In a tweet made Monday, Feb. 18, the Montgomery County Department of Police said they “are fully aware of the video clip that is circulating the internet showing a traffic altercation — ‘road rage’ — incident. Our detectives are investigating the incident. All facts and circumstances will be investigated fully.”
