A Black pastor in Arizona filmed the moments a man drove up and called him a racial slur the day after the man shoved him and sprayed him with a hose.
Pastor Paul Abram, who leads Southern Avenue Missionary Baptist Church in south Phoenix, told local news outlets that he was watering the dirt along an easement on his property to tamp down dust for air quality when Brian Merrill confronted him.
Merrill was reportedly hired to clear weeds on the other side of the easement.
Abram started filming Merrill when he pulled up in his SUV with the window rolled down. The now-viral video shows Merrill telling Abram, “This is our easement here. We don’t want water on our side. Dumb n****r.”
Merrill then parks his car and appears to start complaining to someone on the phone.
“I’ve been called everything but a child of God,” Abram told KPNX. “At 62 years old, I have more time behind me than in front of me, and I want to be an example … You can agree to disagree, but don’t use that word. I don’t care if you’re Black or white—it’s just not necessary.”
The Aug. 13 confrontation wasn’t the first encounter Abram had with Merrill.
Surveillance video from the day before shows Merrill shoving Abram and spraying him with water. Abram said Merrill was doing work on a neighboring property that was noisy and disruptive. When he asked Merrill when the work would end, Merrill told him to mind his own business and dropped a bunch of “F bombs” and other derogatory terms, according to the Arizona Republic.
He then sprayed Abram’s feet and pushed him.
Abram looked to the woman who employed Merrill for support, but she said nothing.
“I stumbled a bit when he sprayed me,” Abram recalled. “I told the property owner that’s unacceptable. You can’t do that.”
Merrill disputed Abram’s version of events, arguing that Abram brazenly confronted him, calling him a “(expletive) idiot” and then a “cracker.”
In a phone interview, Merrill told the Arizona Republic that Abram is a “social media nut” who was “full of crap.”
Merrill maintains that he was the one who was provoked by Abram, but acknowledged that using the slur was wrong and wants to remedy the situation. He claimed that, following the viral video, internet sleuths have contacted the employers of his family members, seeking to have them terminated.
“I’m sincerely sorry this whole thing happened, but I swear to God on my life, I didn’t go look for this problem,” Merrill said.
Merrill’s employer confirmed that Merrill called Abram a racial slur, but still defended Merrill’s character, calling him “unbelievably nice” and “helpful.” She said “there was some aggression on both sides,” and “testosterone flying all over the place.”
“It wasn’t like he yelled it (the racial epithet),” Diana Rogers said. “He just said it in very low terms, kind of under his breath, almost.”
Back in April, Abram recorded Merrill lighting a large fire at a neighboring lot. The video was overlaid with text stating that Merrill tends to use racial slurs regularly.
Abram filed a police report for attempted assault in the Aug. 13 incident and also reported the incident from the day prior. He said he also plans to file a harassment injunction against Merrill, as well.
