A company has denied employing a man who was caught on camera wearing one of its branded work shirts during a now-viral racist road rage incident in Georgia.
In the video that has gained hundreds of thousands of views across social media this week, a white man can be seen wearing a gray shirt that reads “Green-Watt.” He gets out of the passenger side of a white van and delivers a steady string of expletives to the Black man recording the video from inside his Lexus.
“Fuck you!” the man in gray repeatedly says.
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“Green what?” the Lexus driver attempts to read the print on the man’s shirt. “What’s that say on your shirt?”
The angry man ignores the driver’s question and flips him the bird before returning to the white van to remove his shirt and cap.
“You see what this says?” the man yells as he steps back to the Lexus driver, showing a large tattoo scribbled across his abdomen. “It says, ‘crazy ass fucking white boy,’ homeboy!
“You feeling that life?” the angry man continues screaming. “Then, get the fuck out, you scary ass, n-----!”
In a report provided to The Daily Beast by the Dekalb County Police Department, on Aug. 16, the Lexus driver told police that a van with Texas plates followed him on the interstate, with the white driver and passenger constantly giving him the middle finger. When the Lexus driver attempted to take an exit, the white van blocked the Lexus and the passenger got out of the van.
According to local outlet WSB-TV Atlanta, the Lexus driver, who wished to not be identified for safety reasons, said he started filming the incident when both the driver and passenger of the white van started yelling at him on the road. The Lexus driver said he couldn’t recall doing anything to upset them while driving.
“I honestly don’t know,” the Lexus driver said. “I have no clue of me cutting him off.”
After the man went on his racist diatribe, he got back into the van and drove off, according to the Dekalb County police report.
Green-Watt Lighting Solutions, based in Texas, is a joint venture of GreenWatt Development and MeshTek Labs. Both companies specialize in lighting technology, with business mogul Mark Cuban as an investor for MeshTek.
“What happened was horrible,” Cuban told The Daily Beast, saying he doesn’t know anyone at Green-Watt or “anything about their operations.”
An attorney for GreenWatt Development told The Daily Beast that the man seen in the video is not affiliated with the company in any capacity.
“This person appears to be simply wearing a t-shirt with a similar name on it,” GreenWatt wrote in an email.
The logo seen on the man’s shirt appeared nearly identical to the Green-Watt Lighting Solutions logo.
The Lexus driver did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s requests for comment Tuesday.
