#Upstate NY man caught on video shouting N-word at black driver

An upstate New York man flagged down a black driver to tell her “black lives don’t matter” and scream “I hate n—ers!” in a caught-on-camera attack that’s now under police investigation.

Jakeila Phillips filmed the passenger in a hatchback trying to get her attention while driving alongside her in Utica, with her winding down her window and asking, “What did you say?”

“I said I hate n—ers!” the man, who told her he was a cook named Barry Wardell, shouted back.

“Put me on Facebook. Black lives don’t matter! N—er!” he screamed, leaning out of the window as they drove down Genesee Street.

Chuckling at the brazen verbal assault, Phillips calmly asked if he had “anything else” to say.

“Blacks should be slaves. Give me back my grandparents’ property,” he said, referring to her “f—ing ancestors.”

When she asked what he did for a living, Wardell replied, “I cook. I’m a chef. And I hang n—ers on the weekend.”

“But no disrespect to you,” he bizarrely added as Phillips drove away, still laughing.

As well as Wardell’s challenge to put it on social media, Phillips said she posted the video Saturday to prove that she experiences “racist/prejudice encounters all the time,” saying, “I finally got to catch one on camera.”

City of Utica police said Sunday it was “actively looking into the incident to identify if any crimes have been committed.”

“Regardless of the criminality of it we were disgusted and horrified by the words used,” police said in a statement. “It is one of the most ignorant things anyone has ever said and is not indicative of the citizens here and the city we are all proud of.”

Hamilton College’s president, David Wippman, slammed the “despicable racist slurs” made by the man it confirmed had been a contract worker for the college’s food services provider.

“He will not work here again and has been banned from our campus effective immediately,” Wippman said.

“The behavior shown on the video is an extreme violation of our community standards and will not be tolerated.”

Wardell’s employer, Bon Appétit, told the Observer-Dispatch that he had been put on leave in February because of the coronavirus pandemic — and wouldn’t ever be coming back.

“Bon Appétit has a zero-tolerance policy regarding racism,” company officials said in a statement. “We condemn these vile comments whole-heartedly.”

Wardell’s Facebook page was deleted soon after the video started going viral.