A hotel clerk was fired from a Virginia Radisson Hotel after he was caught on tape calling a black patron a racial slur, according to The Washington Post.

Irby Fogelman and his family were at the Newport News, Virginia, hotel to visit his mother when he smelled smoke in his room.

When Fogelman’s girlfriend, Kelsey Cunningham, went downstairs to ask for another room, the unidentified clerk became hostile. Fogelman went downstairs, asked for a supervisor and was given a business card. When another customer arrived to complain about not having a television in their room, Fogelman gave them a knowing glance. Then the clerk became very angry.

In the video of the exchange, the clerk demands Fogelman leave the premises because he is “rude.” At the end of the video, the clerk turns away to open a door, and mutters “f*cking monkey.”

“Oh, so you’re racist?” Fogelman replies. “That’s why you don’t like me — because I’m black.”

The clerk calls him rude again before the video ends.

Lisa Little, the hotel’s general manager, released a statement apologizing for the incident, and said the man was fired Monday.

“I want to apologize for the inappropriate behavior and comments of one of our employees,” Little wrote. “As a result of this incident we will also be re-training every employee this week on our code-of-conduct policies to help ensure something like this never happens again.”

irby fogelman

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