A woman was caught on camera making racist remarks at parents with their young children on an LAX shuttle bus.
Pervez Taufiq told KNX News it started on their flight. Taufiq explained that he went to check on his son sitting in business class when he had his first run-in with the lady.
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“The lady was walking to her seat from the bathroom and basically said, ‘Can you get out of the way?’” he recalled. “And I said, ‘Yeah, sure. Sorry.' And I moved to the side.”
He said the woman was muttering under her breath.
While the family was leaving the plane, Taufiq’s 11-year-old son then revealed that the woman asked him if he was Indian and if he was from New Delhi.
When the family got on the shuttle, Taufiq said his 4-year-old and 8-year-old sons were talking about the plane outside when the woman screamed at his sons to “Shut up! Just shut up!”
Taufiq said he snapped at her.
“And I said, ‘You shut the f**k up! You can’t talk to our sons that way. That’s ridiculous. How dare you!’” he said.
He said the woman’s husband got in his face for a moment before backing off.
That’s when Taufiq pulled out his phone.
In the video taken by Taufiq, the woman was seen flashing her middle fingers at the family. She then can be heard saying, “Your family is from India. You have no respect. There are no rules. You think you can push everyone. Push, push, push.”
She then pulls out her phone to film him, accusing him of being racist toward her and that she was going to “film his tandoori stinky a**.”
“You’re not American…no, you’re from f***ing India,” she said.
When Taufiq tells her he was born in America, the woman says, “No you weren’t.”
Taufiq said the woman continued to make remarks at him and a United representative asked if he wanted to leave the bus. Taufiq and his wife said “no” and directed them to the woman. He said the United representative asked the woman if she wanted to leave the bus and she declined as well.
He said while the other passengers on the bus stayed quiet, only one man stood up for the family.
Nicole Taufiq, Pervez’s wife, told KNX News she felt helpless.
“Not as a victim, but as a mother because my kids were there, and in any scenario, I would never want them to be in that situation ever,” she said. “And I could not do anything to cushion them. I could not move them to the next bus. They’re minors. They had to go through that experience and Pervez and I had no say in that and that was extremely brutal.”
Pervez and Nicole want to press charges but do not know who the woman is. They hope someone is able to identify her.
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