A UPS driver who carried out a racist outburst while delivering a package to a Latin household in Milwaukee a few days before Christmas has been terminated, a company spokesman told NBC News on Tuesday.
Recordings of the house’s video doorbell camera showed on the evening of December 17 how a white man in a UPS uniform, standing on a porch while holding a parcel and writing what appeared to be a notice that did not could not succeed.
“Now you do not get f —— nothing … You can not read and write and speak the f —— English language,” the UPS driver is seen pasting the notice. the door of the house.A young Latino police officer lives in the house.
“UPS is huge, it’s worldwide and it serves any other package delivery business. You can not do that. You can not just look at a package and make these crazy assumptions,” said Shirley Aviles, the mother of the Latino officer living in the home told NBC News by phone.
Due to privacy concerns, the name of the terminated UPS driver is not disclosed.
Latino lawyer group Forward Latino organized a press conference on Tuesday on behalf of the Latino police officer and his mother, almost two weeks after the incident, after multiple failed attempts to get UPS to respond, Latin President Darryl Morin said. The young police officer, who was not identified, was not at the press conference.
“The only information this driver had that could serve as a trigger for this deep-seated hatred was the name on the package,” Morin told the news conference. The last name on the package was Aviles.
Digital snippets of the video doorbell camera service offered by the family and shared by Forward Latino with reporters do not show the UPS worker ringing the doorbell when he delivers the package to the Aviles household. Morin added that there is also no evidence that the worker ever knocked on the door.
“The package was a Christmas present we finally received after Christmas Day, but what if it had time-sensitive content, such as an epiphen or a book I needed to take a finale,” the police officer’s mother said. said. “I do not understand it. It’s just sad.”
“So what we have here is a very deliberate act to ruin Christmas for someone, for someone to express this hateful rhetoric and to honestly deceive their employer,” Morin said.
Matthew O’Connor, senior manager of media relations at UPS, said in an email that the company “immediately contacted the family to apologize to us when we learned of this incident.”
“There is no place in any community for racism, stupidity or hatred. It is very serious and we acted immediately and terminated the driver’s service. UPS is wholeheartedly committed to diversity, equity and inclusion,” he said.
The Aviles family learned of the termination of the UPS driver after the press conference on Tuesday.
However, Aviles said, ‘It’s bigger than just’ hey, I’m sorry, he’s fired and we apologize. ‘
“It’s about the things people do when they think no one is watching them. It’s important because then you see people’s true colors and that’s what’s scary,” said Aviles, who works for a local social services agency. work.
The Milwaukee community has been rocked by racially charged incidents. A Peruvian immigrant sustained acid burns to his face in November 2019 during a suspected racist attack. More recently, protests have escalated after the Kenosha police shooting paralyzed 29-year-old Jacob Blake, a black man.
Aviles and Forward Latino call on UPS to “make bigger investments” in anti-bias and inclusion training.
UPS executives are undergoing “professionalism and anti-harassment training” when they are hired for the job, O’Connor said. The company also donates to various causes and scholarship funds through the UPS Foundation.
UPS is the largest single employer in the Teamsters Union. “However, this is a staff issue that the local union has not commented on,” a Teamster spokesman said in an email.
Follow NBC Latino on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.