A viral video showing a man going on a full-blown racist tirade outside a Social Security office in Norcross, Ga. has led to a lesson he probably wasn’t ready to learn.
Suggested Reading
According to 11 Alive, Robert John Burke, a 65-year-old white man, was captured on video posted Wednesday (Jan. 14) calling a Black security guard the N-word and lunging at him while bystanders, including young children, looked on. Burke threatens to “kick the shit” out of the Black security guard.
“Want to do it now? Yeah! Take a shot, mother*cker,” Burke screamed at the man, who is twice his size. “Yeah, c’mon,” Burke said as he raised his fists.
As the footage continues, Burke repeatedly calls the security guard the N-word.
”I’m a (expletive) citizen,” Burke screams. “What are you going to do? It’s free speech,” he says as he walks to the parking lot, hurling more racial insults at the security guard.
By the time law enforcement officers arrived on the scene, Burke had reportedly already left the premises. The next day, he was arrested by the Gwinnett County Police Department on charges of misdemeanor disorderly conduct. Police were called to investigate another incident, a disturbance at a Marriott hotel in Duluth, and they discovered that Burke was the culprit.
When police officers went to his room, Burke initially refused to cooperate but eventually complied. He told the officers that he suffered from “schizophrenia, paranoia, and mental health disabilities.
Burke was released on Friday (Jan. 16) after posting a $1,000 bond.
Following the incident, employees at the Social Security office not only identified Burke as the man in the video but also noted that he previously caused disturbances at the location.
One of the front desk employees said she called the police and told them that Burke was being hostile towards her. She then asked for him to be removed from the officer. Per the police report, Burke was being “aggressive, yelling at the employees, and he was also talking to himself.”
In another incident, Burke was issued a bench warrant in Aug. 2024 for failing to appear in court after being ticketed for driving his vehicle without insurance.
Gerald Griggs, President of the Georgia NAACP, expressed his gratitude to law enforcement for taking the matter seriously.
“In certain states, there are laws against uses of terms that by their very utterance can cause a breach of peace,” Griggs said. “I think this arrest will send a strong message in Georgia that there’s no tolerance for the use of that type of word in that context, in a public venue to spew hate,”
Straight From 
Sign up for our free daily newsletter.