TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) -- A road rage incident in Tallahassee was caught on camera, showing a man yelling racial slurs at another driver who was recording the incident.
Due to the sensitive nature of this issue, some language may be offensive.
It happened on the night of December 2. A car with two people inside stopped traffic on Gaines Street approaching Gay Street. The driver started cursing at Jean Vilpin, an Uber driver who had just dropped off a rider.
"He was waiting for me to move past the stop sign," Vilpin said. "He got impatient, and he was inebriated."
Vilpin said he's never experienced an incident like this in his two months driving for Uber in Tallahassee.
The 22-year-old said he started working for the company to supplement his part-time job as assistant band director at Godby High School.
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"I decided I'm not even going to do nothing," he said. "I'm just going to, 'Hey, man. Get out my way.' Honked at him."
That reaction is what law enforcement officials suggest.
"If you cannot drive away, our advice is do not get out of your vehicle, because typically, worse things happen when you get out of your vehicle," said Lt. Grady Jordan of the Leon County Sheriff's Office.
Vilpin, who graduated from FAMU in April, said the incident wasn't just road rage -- it was racism.
"You don't yell out 'n*****', 'coon,' 'porch monkey' in the middle of Gaines Street in front of everybody and not be racist," he said.
With Gaines Street being one lane each way, Vilpin couldn't drive around the situation. He said he had a small blade inside his vehicle, but instead of pulling out a weapon, he pulled out his phone.
"The world has to see this," he said. "The world definitely has to see this."
The video got more than 100,000 views on Facebook, but he said the site removed it for failing to meet "community guidelines."
Vilpin said racist incidents are nothing new to him.
"I've been stopped and the first thing that they ask me, "Did you steal the car? Are there drugs in the car?" he said, adding his race has prompted him to think twice before reacting to situations.
"I'm a young black 22-year-old man, and this is a young white inebriated man out in the streets," Vilpin said. "The first thing that they would've said is, 'Why did they attack this drunk man?'"
Vilpin filed a police report but chose not to press charges.
"I was the bigger person, so whatever happened to him after that, God got it," he said. "I ain't worried about it."
