A Merrill Lynch stockbroker was arrested and fired.
Was it for financial fraud?
Was it for collapsing the economy?
No, nothing like that.
But it was something having to do with harassing workers while they were
on the job.
He was actually caught on camera hurling racist comments at workers at
a smoothie store in Connecticut.
So first a little context and then we'll go to the video of this situation.
So it all started when James Iannazzo,
he's the 48 year old broker here.
He ordered a smoothie from a Robeks smoothie shop outlet for
his son who has a peanut allergy.
According to the Fairfield Police Department, he ordered a drink without
peanut butter, but he did not mention that his son has an allergy.
After his son suffered an allergic reaction and
was transported to an area hospital, he returned to the shop.
So let's just pause there.
Obviously, this is devastating, it's awful.
It appears that one of the workers there made a mistake.
If your kid has a very serious peanut allergy,
you gotta make that abundantly clear.
You gotta double check, especially considering the ramifications of,,
consuming peanuts, but then things got even worse.
Okay, because he decided to go back to the store and engage in a rant.
And it is really interesting how some people when they're angry immediately
resort to comments about race or ethnicity and that's exactly what happened here.
Let's watch.
>> I have no room to yell at them.
Is that you?
>> We don't know who made it.
>> You don't know who made it?
>> We honestly don't know.
Okay you can call corporate whatever you want.
Goodbye.
>> Okay.
>> Care.
>> Give it to me right now.
>> I'm calling the police, I'm calling
the police the telephone, get out.
[NOISE]
Bye.
Okay good for you bye.
Yeah.
>> Are you immigrant loser?
Get, [CROSSTALK] you're going to jail.
You're going to really racist people.
>> So look,, I'm not on the guys side.
I want to be clear that I understand like when your kid gets sick or hospitalized,
of course you're gonna be very upset, tensions flare, I get that.
Okay with that said, you obviously can't throw things at people and
you also probably should avoid referring to the person that
you're yelling at as an immigrant loser.
And shockingly I was actually surprised about this Francesca.
He was arrested and fired from his job as a result of that video,
which, quickly received 16 million views.
So yeah, I'll give you more details on his arrest in just a moment.
But first how about a reaction to, his reaction.
>> Yeah, I think that given the context, you understand someone is upset,
someone is angry but given that, explain what happened right?
That these are humans and people as well, they may be made a mistake.
You could say, hey, my son had this peanut allergy, I'm like,
please like remedy this or like, or even just say, I'm mad about it.
And then that would at least maybe lead to, I don't know,
a blanket apology, but no, instead he comes in there kind of guns blazing and
proceeds to call everyone what like a loser.
And immigrants just so
unnecessary tries to get into the actual area that they're working.
My initial thought was man, people don't get paid enough to deal with customers and
like, let's be real.
Everyone forgot how to act in the pandemic.
Like I don't know what happened,
what came over folks that was suddenly were allowed to go outside again.
And it was like, guess what?
All my rage gonna be taken out on maybe someone who's not even earning 15 an hour.
>> Yeah I was actually having a conversation about this with my
husband because he mentioned like.
These companies need to start paying more and look, this is anecdotal and
overall I do agree with him.
But even some of these restaurants, like I noticed the panda Express that we were at,
don't judge me, kind of like that orange.
They had a sign up saying like, we offer paid time off and health benefits and
$22 an hour and they're like desperate to find workers.
And I brought that up because I'm like, look in some cases,
they are offering better benefits, they are offering better pay.
But have you seen the way workers are treated right now, either in retail or
anything related to like the service sector.
They're treated like they're not human, they're being abused,
their being yelled at think about it.
They not only have to do their jobs, but on top of it, in some cases,
they also have to be like mask enforcers.
They have to do so much more that tends to touch on raw emotions and
like super combative people who don't want to follow like simple rules.
It's a stressful job to have.
>> No, exactly.
It's way above their pay grade and look what is the answer cops.
Hell no, I'm not I would never want that but
there could be an unarmed kind of security.
Some measure of assistance would not be much for a lot of these corporations and
franchises to be able to delegate that person to like.
Make sure everyone's acting right, come correct and can like offer some support.
Again, unarmed support, but some support, I don't think it is.
It's not like a, well I guess you're just gonna have to deal with,
I'll pay you more.
I don't know, you want to free Spotify account, which Starbucks was floating for
a little bit.
>> My God.
>> Which is just like almost insulting.
But here's the thing like do you think he should have lost his job?
And I think a lot of people will be like wow canceled but
at the same time it's Merrill Lynch.
It's a private company that as you said, loves to prey on poor people,
loves to, they might not say immigrant loser, but man,
they've definitely treat immigrants poorly.
And so you almost wonder like,
I don't know like I'm sort of at a crossroads about that,
but also it's a private company, they can do whatever the hell they want.
>> Yeah, that's true.
Okay, generally speaking, I'm not really in favor of like get him fired and destroy
their lives because it's not just about the individual who engaged in wrongdoing.
It's also about like the consequences that this guy's family is going to
have to face as a result of his bad behavior.
This, I don't know, it's a tough situation, you're right,
it's a private company, they can do whatever they want.
But overall I would just urge people to kind of hesitate before calling for
people to lose their livelihood.
This guy though, he did get arrested because it's assault like throwing things
at people, it's assault.
You can't get arrested for saying racist things that's actually protected speech,
but the way that he was treating the workers is what got him in trouble.
So he was charged with intimidation based on bigotry or bias,
breach of peace and criminal trespass and that's according to a police report.
Following his arrest, he was fired from his position at Merrill Lynch.
As we mentioned, he had been working there for 26 years.
They released a statement saying our company does not tolerate behavior of
this kind.
We immediately investigated and have taken action.
This individual is no longer employed at our firm.
But, another perspective is, well,
most people who end up getting arrested end up losing their jobs as well so
getting arrested is serious and there's evidence of what he did.
And then look and
I get it like there's the other part of me that's also sympathetic to the fact that
he was probably in panic mode because of what happened to his son.
But that still doesn't justify abusing people.
And it certainly doesn't justify calling someone an immigrant loser because
you're upset.
You got to find a better way to release that stress or that frustration and
just, it's hard, but you're an adult, you gotta figure out a way to do it.