Man Goes on Racist Anti-Asian Rant in Parking Lot: 'Thanks for Giving My Country COVID'

A woman recorded video of a racist rant from a man in Tustin, California, in which the man used Asian slurs and tried to intimidate her.

According to local TV outlet KTLA, Hanna Li filmed the video in a retail center parking lot on Sunday and posted it on to the Nextdoor app. It was subsequently shared to other platforms like Twitter. As seen in the clip, the man shouts at Li from the driver's seat of his Jeep truck. A woman can also be seen in the Jeep's passenger seat, and the pair of them appear to be anti-maskers, as evidenced by Li's KTLA interview and post on Nextdoor.

The 39-second video starts while the man is seemingly in the middle of a sentence. He can be heard saying: "...To China. Why don't you do that? Why don't you stay at home?"

As the man realizes that Li is filming, he gets out of his car, seemingly in an attempt to intimidate her. "You wanna photograph me? Are you really that dumb? You wanna photograph me?" he says, as Li gets into her car. He then says a racial slur, but becomes inaudible as Li closes the door to her car.

The man then goes back into his car and shouts at Li again, after she steps out of her car and keeps filming. "Are you really that stupid? Y'know that recording doesn't do anything. Stay home, and thanks for giving my country COVID. Have a great day," he says.

People online claimed to recognize the man in the video as an Irvine gym owner and trainer. A screenshot of the trainer's Instagram has been passed around on social media. Regardless of whether that actually is him in the recording, the trainer appears to have deleted his Instagram, the website for what appears to be his gym is loaded with errors, and the phone number on the website was disconnected. Newsweek reached out to the gym via Facebook messenger for comment.

In an interview with KTLA, Li said that the man in the video didn't wear a mask inside the retail center's Sephora and that he didn't social distance, either. After alerting the store's staff that the man wasn't giving her adequate space, they asked him to properly social distance.

Li said that after she left the store, she spotted the man in his Jeep, and he proceeded to harass and threaten her. "He was saying, 'I'm gonna punch you in the face,'" she told KTLA.

Someone shared a screenshot of Li's Nextdoor post on Twitter, wherein she detailed the experience at the Sephora, and said that despite the man's racist harassment, she's "forever proud of China and grateful to be Chinese."

"I'm already prepared mentally for this kind of situation," Li said to KTLA. "It's not the first time it happened to Asians."