A Black Air Force veteran from Arizona filmed the racist tirade a repairman unleashed on him earlier this month following a dispute about insurance coverage on a refrigerator.
Ricky Barnes of Avondale, Arizona, is now calling for the technician who threatened multiple times to beat Barnes “like a slave” to be arrested.
Barnes initially called his warranty company Select Home Warranty after he noticed his refrigerator had stopped working.
On Jan. 20 at around 4 p.m. a technician from J&H Appliance and Microwave Repair arrived at Barnes’ home. Barnes said the man looked surprised to see a Black man answer the door.
When Barnes led the man into the garage where the refrigerator was located, he said the man gave him another confused look upon seeing a Mercedes-Benz parked inside. The technician then claimed the warranty would not cover the refrigerator because it was kept in the garage.
Barnes disputed this contention, then left the garage to call the insurance company to confirm the refrigerator was under warranty.
As the two argued and the conflict escalated, Barnes pulled out his phone and recorded a portion of the encounter. He posted the video to social media on Jan. 21.
At the start of the video, Barnes and the technician are standing outside of the home arguing.
About 10 seconds into the footage, the repairman tells Barnes, “I will beat you like a motherf—in’ slave!”
“You’re going to beat me like a slave?” Barnes responded.
“I’ve got a picture of you with a pole in your hand,” the technician said.
“OK, good! You’re right,” Barnes said. “I’m protecting [myself] from you, talking about you’re going to beat me like a slave.”
After the man returned to his truck, Barnes wondered aloud, “Why’d they send these crazy racist people to my house?”
Barnes said he called Avondale police that same day to report the incident and hoped the man would be arrested. He held a news conference in Avondale on Monday. Barnes said he “almost lost it” after the technician told him he’d beat him like a slave but said he opted not to escalate the situation further when his 9-year-old son came around the corner.
Barnes said he still does not know where the man is now and that he has secured his home by adding security cameras and that his wife has became nervous while at the house. “He put me in this predicament,” Barnes said. “Why wasn’t he arrested?”
Benjamin Taylor, one of Barnes’ attorneys, also questioned why the technician hasn’t been arrested.
“We want justice for Ricky,” Taylor said. “We want to make sure that this person is arrested, prosecuted and convicted, because no person who’s a 15-year veteran in the Air Force who served his country should be abused and harassed like this in front of his 9-year-old son and his wife.”
According to a police report obtained by the Arizona Republic, an officer called the warranty company and spoke to a man who identified himself as Peter, and claimed he was the technician who had gone to Barnes’ home.
Peter said Barnes grew angry because he didn’t want to pay additional charges and that he followed him to his truck with a pole in his hand. Peter said there was a witness in the truck but hasn’t provided further details about the witness. An officer went to speak with Peter in person but the business was closed at the time, according to the report.
“This case will remain inactive due to the identity and whereabouts of Peter unknown at this time,” the report later states. “If further information should arise, this case will be revisited.”
