A lenient boss is defending his employees after being seen losing his cool during a confrontation with a woman over a parking spot in Newport Beach, California.
The original video, which eventually went viral, was filmed in early August and shows his employee Nigel Ford arguing with a woman named Manuela.
Manuela had been parking her car on the street, but had jumped into the spot Nigel was pointing at.
At one point Nigel could be seen kicking and hitting the vehicle with his body as he was filmed.
The video was eventually seen by Nigel’s boss, Deena Saunders-Green, who runs a media company in nearby Long Beach, California.
Deena was bombarded with messages from people demanding that Nigel be fired for his actions, but in a heartfelt video message posted in response, she explained in some detail her reasons for why Nigel was kept on the payroll.
Deena Saunders-Green, 51, who runs a media company in California, is defending her decision not to fire one of her workers after he was caught on camera threatening a female driver.
Nigel Ford, pictured, was caught on camera crashing into the side of a car after another driver snatched his parking spot.
“This young man? Yes, I know him. He works here at a company I founded. Did he misbehave? Of course. Am I going to fire him for it? No way,” Deena began.
‘And why am I not going to fire this man?’ she asked, ‘because he shows up regularly to do the work that involves working with black and Latino artists who have been affected by these systems like the foster care system.
“Did he go through a terrible time? Absolutely. Why don’t I fire him? Because I know his character,” he explained.
Deena then revealed how she had received some terrifying messages after coming to Nigel’s defence.
One said: “You fucking loser! I hope you get beaten every day because you’re worthless.”
Another threatened: ‘You better hide and delete this account, if I find you I will kill you.’
Nigel was seen protesting with the woman during the incident last month in Newport Beach, California.
In the original minute-long video, Nigel can be seen pacing back and forth in the car as he tries to explain to the driver that he had been looking to park in the same spot.
At one point he can be seen kicking the wheels of the vehicle and then using his body to push it.
“This is crazy,” the driver inside the vehicle says. “So you’re going to hit me or what?”
“Wherever you work, they’ll love this,” another woman in the vehicle can be heard saying.
Many of those who commented on the video were not impressed with Nigel’s behaviour.
“I hope he’s realizing he shouldn’t approach a woman like that and be violent with her car. She’s next. I bet he does it again with a girlfriend, wife or child,” one wrote.
“I just want to thank you for posting this video. I met him in real life and he was very violent. It’s normal for him. I’m glad you’re okay and that you handled the situation so well,” another added.
Nigel’s boss, Deena, has decided not to fire him, suggesting that “everyone has bad days.”
Nigel could be seen moving back and forth in the car as he tried to argue with the driver who kept her windows closed the whole time.
Meanwhile, her boss, Deena, went on to explain how she believes the pandemic goes some way to explaining people’s seemingly irrational behavior from time to time.
‘We all survived a collective trauma that was the pandemic and when the numbers went down everyone said ‘go back to work, everything is fine, everything is normal’, we have not returned to normal, we are not okay.
“Can you give people a little grace?” Deena asked viewers.
Deena then revealed that Nigel was worried that his outburst, which was caught on video, could lead to the media company he works for facing bad publicity. However, Deena offers a dose of humanity in her account of the incident.
“We’ve all had moments where if someone had videotaped us, we would have gone nuts. Don’t DM me. I’m not going to fire him because he shows up and does the work, the work that a lot of other people aren’t willing to do.”
His response received praise from many online commentators.
“THIS IS AN EMPLOYER. THIS. WOW. You are amazing,” wrote one.
“This is the most realistic, humanistic and genuine response I have seen on this app,” another added.
“We all have bad days, it’s great that you found it funny,” added a third.
Throughout the video, Deena continued to show a lot of empathy for her worker.
Later, in a second video, Deena addressed the situation once again, as she had been bombarded with messages asking her to fire her worker, but it only served to harden her resolve.
“I don’t condone or condone any kind of crazy behavior, but I know we’re all human and I know that if someone hits me with their car, I’m going to respond. And if a video is recorded of my response without context…” she says before stopping herself and pointing out that the video only shows the end of a conflict.
“A lot of people are going through a tough time with their mental health. The things people are saying they want to do to this young man because they saw the end of a video are not doing us any good,” she said.
Throughout the video, Deena continued to show a lot of empathy for her worker.
“I wish some of you would stand up for women like this in real life, honestly.”
She went on to say that she believes Nigel does not deserve to receive death threats and leaves viewers with one final rebuke.
“If you have video showing him acting crazy or doing something else under different circumstances, then we’ll talk. I’m not disrupting our operations, this young man’s life, which is what many of you are doing.”
Nigel has since shared his side of the story, apologising and explaining how before the video started, he was hit by the vehicle.
“I apologized to the girls for making them feel threatened,” he wrote online. “For some reason, the girls had robbed the spot we were waiting for a minute. They went ahead to rob the spot.
“I got out of the car with the intention of clearing up the confusion. Instead of having a civil conversation, they drove on and hit me with their car before starting the video. What everyone saw in the video was my reaction to being hit.”
