New York police have launched an investigation after a family said they faced a hate-filled tirade from a couple on a train. While speaking with NBC New York, Liz Edelkind said the incident happened when she was going back home with her family and some friends after watching a New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 10. 

A short clip of the incident, posted to social media, shows a man on the train who is repeatedly yelling, "Look straight, don't look at me."

"Don't f**king look at me," the passenger can be heard saying. "These f**king foreigners ain't taking over my f**king country."

Edelkind was riding the Long Island Rail Road train with her 10-year-old son and her husband, as well as two friends, when the encounter happened. The New York mother said she first asked some passengers to move for her group so they can have a seat. A rowdy passenger and a woman who was accompanying him on the train allegedly followed up by yelling at the group. 

"The couple started to verbally attack me, calling me curse words, immigrant, that I don't pay taxes, that I have no rights in this country," Edelkind said, adding that the pair were triggered by her accent and skin color. "How dare they assume because I look or sound different that I am not a U.S. citizen." 

The belligerent couple are also accused of physically attacking the group.

"They threw beer at us. My pastor and her husband, and my husband, got in the way to protect me," Edelkind said. 

They disgraced passengers left the train after a conductor was called. A lawyer for the employer of the man and woman said the pair have been fired from their jobs after the incident. 

Edelkind, who is a small business owner in Suffolk County, said her 10-year-old continues to be unsettled by the incident. But the mother is speaking up to show her son that the family is strong.

"That night, we felt small and scared and I'm doing this for my son, so he knows we are together, and if we're together, we're strong," she said.


According to News 12, the family is pressing charges against the couple. 

"I don't want people to be acting up against immigrants anymore because unless you are of Native American descent, we are all immigrants," Edelkind said, News 12 reports. "There is no reason that you can treat somebody without dignity or respect based on how they look or how they sound."

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