Texas Rangers ban fan who harassed Hispanic family hours after El Paso massacre
By Joshua Rhett Miller
August 12, 2019 | 1:46pm | Updated
A white man who verbally harassed a Hispanic family at a Texas Rangers game just hours after the El Paso Walmart massacre has been permanently banned from homegames, team officials announced.
The unidentified fan was banned after Jessica Romero, of Fort Worth, detailed the unprovoked hatred she claims he spewed shortly after the start of a game between the Rangers and the Detroit Tigers on Aug. 3.
“The Texas Rangers are committed to providing a safe and welcoming fan experience for everyone who attends our home games,” team officials said, adding that the ban for the offensive comments and profane gesture is indefinite.The Rangers on Friday said the fan would no longer be welcome at Rangers games played in Arlington, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
Some players on the team — including Elvis Andrus, who became a US citizen just last month — said the Rangers made the right call.
“This game is too beautiful,” Andrus told the newspaper. “Baseball is about different cultures, different races, different ethnicities. So at this point in 2019, to still have a racial moment, it’s not good.”
Manager Chris Woodward agreed with Andrus, saying that he “loved” the statement released by the team.
“We just won’t tolerate that as an organization,” Woodward told the newspaper.
The angry fan made his dislike of Hispanics “perfectly clear” beginning in the second inning and took his rage to another level after his seat was kicked by a young boy sitting behind him, Romero wrote in a since-deleted Facebook post.
“And for the next 3 innings I had to hear him complain about all the illegal immigrants that were surrounding him at the game,” Romero’s post continued. “That he should kick little Speedy Gonzalez all the way back to Mexico for kicking his seat.”
The post also showed the man holding up his middle finger as Romero’s family snapped a selfie at Globe Life Park.
The racist rant came just hours after a gunman purportedly posted an anti-immigrant manifesto and killed 22 people at a Walmart.
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