ROCKINGHAM — A man hired to help schedule family portraits for a fundraiser has been fired after he was reportedly caught on video using profanity and a racial slur.
Sheumae Stanton Quick, of Rockingham, posted a video to her Facebook page Saturday from her Ring doorbell.
The video appears to show the man, who has not been identified, walk up the steps of Quick’s home holding a clipboard and ring the doorbell around the five-second mark.
Around the 31-second mark, the man appears to be agitated and can be heard saying, “Come on man, answer the g-dd–n door, you f–kin’ ni—r, you’re a f–kin’ ni—r.”
He then appears to let out a sigh and walk up to the door, knock and announce “Rescue squad.”
Quick said the incident happened around 11:47 a.m.
She said she was home at the time they called the police and later found out the man was contracted.
Quick said her husband went outside and saw the man was still in the neighborhood, called him over and let him know they had him on video and the man walked away.
“And the sad thing about it, this man never seen us nor did he know our race,” she said, adding that he racially profiled them by the vehicles in the yard.
Scott Waters, chief of the Richmond County Rescue Squad, said the man is not a member of the squad, but was hired by the company the squad contracts with to take family portraits for an annual fundraiser.
Joe Herring, the owner of the company, confirmed that the man was terminated “immediately.”
Waters said the squad was trying to locate the man to stop him from making any other visits in Richmond County representing the rescue squad.
“We’ve used this company for years at the rescue squad and we’ve never had any kind of problems like this,” Waters said. “When this was brought to my attention, I immediately took action and called (the owner) and he has fired this man.
“This will not be tolerated,” Waters continued. “We do not and will not accept this type of behavior.”
Waters said that the shirt being worn by the man was paid for by the late Ed Hairfield, so that representatives of the company could show that they were not scammers.
“We work too hard to provide a service to the community and we have to do all types of fundraisers,” Waters added.
The chief said the squad has advertised both with mail-outs and door-to-door, but the latter has been more successful. The only problems in the past were residents calling to verify if it was a scam or legit.
“We’re offended that this happened to us,” Waters said. “We work hard to save lives and we work hard to be engaged in the community … we save lives for everybody … and for that man to make that kind of comment, it floored me.”
Waters said the man will no longer be affiliated with the photography company or going door-to-door on behalf of the rescue squad.
