A Missouri man is speaking out after a viral video showing two men hurling insults and accusations at a group of African-American teens at a neighborhood pool early last week in a Kansas City, Missouri, suburb.
Jeff Sallis said his 18-year-old daughter was caught in the mix of what he believes was a racially motivated incident.
Resident Jeff Sallis (right) confronts neighbor Bobby Ross over an expletive-laden rant against his daughter and her friends at the subdivision’s pool last week. (KSHB / video screenshot)
“This isn’t acceptable,” Sallis said of the July 1 encounter. “There’s no reason for a grown man, two grown men actually, to engage in the manner that they did with a bunch of young teenagers.”
Cellphone video shared to Facebook shows the two men accusing the teens of a rash of vandalism near their neighborhood in the town of Lee’s Summit and questions whether they should even be at the pool, local station KSHB reported. The men are also heard using several expletives toward the teens.
“We have to pay for all the s–t you guys do,” one man says in the video, later adding: “That doesn’t mean you invite all your young friends in my pool … [do] you pay the f—–g dues?”
The men claimed neighborhood residents are only allowed one guest at the pool, however, posted rules explicitly state that three guests per household are allowed. Two of the teens, including Sallis’ daughter, live in the subdivision.
“If each of them had three [guests], that’s six between the two plus the two residents is eight,” Sallis explained. “They’re in compliance.”
The outraged father, who’s been a resident of the Ashton at Charleston Park subdivision for 14 years, told the station he believes race was a motivating factor in the men’s behavior toward the teens.
“I’m absolutely sure race played a factor here, because again when you look at the video the way the gentleman postured himself and the things, he was saying, [like] ‘They probably don’t even live here. This is my pool. You don’t belong here,'” Sallis said. “It was a lot of you, you, you.”
One of the men from the video, Bobby Ross, later gave his side of the story and apologized for his “inappropriate” rant.
“I shouldn’t have gone off the deep end like I did,” Ross told KSHB in a separate interview. “The language that I used was inappropriate, and I apologized to all the kids, the other gentleman that was involved. I lost it because of the way I was spoken to.”
The man said the confrontation with the teens unfolded after he witnessed one of them hop the fence to let their friends into the pool.
The interview quickly went left, however, when Sallis made a surprise appearance to confront the man who yelled at his daughter.
“Excuse me, excuse me — this is my time,” Ross told Sallis.
“You did your talking the other night,” Sallis shot back. “You’re done.”
During their heated exchange, Ross denied allegations that he confronted the teens because they were African-American.
“It had nothing to do with race,” Ross told Sallis. “So, you can take it to that direction if you want to. It wasn’t that. It was me questioning kids that were hoping the pool fence and not supposed to be here.”
Things eventually calmed down and the two men settled their differences with a handshake.
Watch more in the video below.
Here’s footage before the father spoke with the man which also shows clips of the white males confronting the teens.
