Hundreds of Latinos in a New Jersey community protested outside of Passaic City Hall this week, calling for the termination of an officer who bullied two teenagers and threatened to deport their families early this year.
According to Jasmine Vidal of Passaic, she was sitting with her boyfriend on a porch in February, when Sgt Roy Bordamonte pulled up in his patrol vehicle. He started speaking to them from inside the car, but the teenagers told him to get out and talk to them. At that point, Bordamonte got out of the car and started cursing at them. In a video recorded by Vidal, the officer asks her boyfriend if he is special ed and calls him an idiot for “mouthing off.” Then he proceeds to threaten the kids and their families.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to knock on your fuckin door. I’m going to check your mom’s ID, and all your fuckin cousins’ and relatives’,” Bordamonte said. “And when they give me a bullshit fucking name, I’m going to have immigration pick everybody up so they can go back to the fucking border and pueblo or wherever the fuck you came from. And all the hard work they came to America, you fucked it up.”
He also calls Vidal’s boyfriend illegal, because he does not have ID, and later demands the boyfriend to unlock his phone.
“Turn around. Keep your hands on the fucking top, ’cause if I think you might be movin, you might be going for me, I’ll fuckin choke your ass out.”
Watch the whole video here:
The incident in Passaic happened months ago, but a new petition calling on New Jersey Sens. Cory Booker (D) and Robert Menendez (D) to take immediate action reignited efforts to seek justice for the teenagers and Latino community at large.
“I’m starting this petition because an officer in my town of Passaic nj harasses citizens daily. He’s a bully in our city. This is what we face everyday in Passaic nj. With this particular officer,” James Johnson, the author of the change.org petition wrote. “To the residents of Passaic this isn’t nothing new but this has to stop enough is enough the voice you hear on the video is officer ROY himself demonstrating how he and his task force serve and protect or should I say harrass and disrespect ..we need justice for our citizens!!!”
Latinos make up 70 percent of Passaic’s population.
Bordamonte invoked Arizona’s partially unconstitutional racial profiling law, SB 1070, saying, “I’ll make this shit fucking like Texas, bro…Arizona? Where you’re fuckin stopped and just check fuckin people for no reason.”
The law authorized cops to racially profile Latinos by stopping them and demanding that they hand over their immigration papers. The law was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2012, but law enforcement continues to target and criminalize immigrants. For instance, Sheriff Joe Arpaio has detained thousands of immigrant families in an Arizona jail known as Tent City, which he calls a concentration camp. He’s also sanctioned the arrests of little children and pregnant immigrant women.
According to the local police department, the sergeant has been disciplined. But officials have not yet identified what the punishment was for, or what it entailed. Mayor Alex Blanco has also called for calm and restraint” while the city conducts an internal review of the police encounter.