Taco Bell employee fired after profane video about Muslims goes viral

BRIDGETON, Mo. — A Taco Bell employee in Missouri lost her job after a video depicting a profanity-laced tirade against Muslims went viral, KTVI reported.

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The May 14 incident took place around 1 a.m. in the drive-thru at the fast-food restaurant in Bridgeton, the television station reported. According to a tweet by Tarek Hamdan, who recorded the exchange, he had a "25-minute debate" with a worker who insisted "all Muslims are terrorists.

“It’s not what you think and what you see in the news,” Hamdan tells the worker in the video. We don’t follow those people. Those people are monsters. Those people are disgusting. Those are the people who make the religion look bad.”

After uttering a slur against Muslims, the woman, who had given Hamdan her phone number, invited him to call her to change her mind, according to the video.

“They tore down my country,” the worker said. “They killed thousands of my people. So you need to change my mind, and I’m not going to cater to you, you’re going to need to cater to me ’cause this is on my territory.”

In a statement, Taco Bell officials said the employee had been fired.

“We welcome everyone in our restaurants and do not tolerate this type of behavior,” the company said. “This is a franchise location and the team member involved no longer works for this franchisee. The franchisee has reached out to the customer to apologize.”

"I am utterly appalled by this ugly display of anti-Muslim bigotry and ignorance," Faizan Syed, executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations-Missouri, told KSDK. "Taco Bell needs to take this incident seriously, apologize to the customer and immediately implement cultural competency training for all of their staff."

Cox Media Group