A pair of viral internet videos marked the latest racist incident to be caught on camera and spark outrage across the internet.
The videos captured three White men hurling racial slurs and insults at a Hispanic man in the parking lot of a Popeye's fast food restaurant in Escondido, California.
The couple clips, taken by the victim himself, show he began recording after the group had already accosted him with racist verbal attacks.
With the camera rolling, the victim tried to prompt the White men to repeat what they'd said before, asking, "what about me, I should go back?"
After some initial hesitancy, the men in the video went ahead and attacked him again. One of them, with his face occupying the entire camera, proudly told him to "go back to where you f'kin came from."
Later on, another man called him the N-word as well as "bean bag," a racist name for people from Central or South America.
At one point, the man filming zoomed in on the license plate of their car, only to have two of the racist group quickly step in front of the plate.
Their vigilance contradicted a later comment made by one of the group who said, "Send it to the news, I dare you."
Twitter was furious to see the shameless hatred in action.
Some hit the perpetrators with the biting humor so typical of internet outrage.
Eventually, Twitter identified the three men in the video.
Eventually, Nick Dunn made an apology video.
As Heavy noted, he posted it to YouTube but later deleted it.
It was, however, reposted by others.
In his apology, Dunn spent a couple minutes describing what he claimed were the events that lead to the altercation, citing the victim forced them to be racist. Dunn claimed the three men were in a "flight or fight mode" prompted by the lone man they hurled racial slurs at.
Dunn later said "the guy was looking for this to happen." He then launched into a more complete apology where he—of course—said this wasn't like him and he's not racist.
It's almost like there's a script to follow.
"I'm truly, truly, truly sorry for the way that I behaved. I'm not really like that. I'm not racist or anything. I don't hate people based on the color of their skin. That's not my deal."
He continued with a selective retelling of the story.
"In the moment my adrenaline was sky high and I was in like a fight or flight mode. So that's why I got in his face and yelled like get the f'k out of here, but I know that's not what I said."
Dunn then closed with a last ditch effort for absolution.
He repeatedly said he was sorry, he begged for people to forgive him and realize he's "not a hater." Dunn even pointed out he's an Eagle Scout so he "does care about this country and everything."
As Daily Dot noted, the victim from the original videos was not at all pleased when someone on Twitter, in a now deleted tweet, advocated on behalf of the racist attackers after seeing Dunn's apology.
They responded accordingly:
@jonpeace67/Twitter
It's a story that hammered home a bizarre truth.
They're so proud to hurl racial slurs and to be filmed in the moment while committing the act, no matter how easy it is to predict the consequences. But after there are repercussions?
They're all "not that person."
@elektrotimmy/X
