The man, identified as 36-year-old Paul Lawson, was riding on the L train heading toward Brooklyn when Joshua Pyne began to film his hate-filled rant.
"I talk sh*t because I know I can. I went to NYU law, f**k you," the man yells out to the passengers. "First amendment, n***er, n***er, n***er n***er!"
Speaking to the New York Post, Pyne said the man had gotten into a verbal altercation with a group of African-American teenagers prior to the moment he began filming. Once the teens got off the train, the belligerent drunk started to refer to the then-departed passengers as "stupid n***ers," which quickly got the attention of more passengers.
Trying to prevent the situation from escalating, one rider got in between Lawson and the crowd in the hopes of getting Lawson to settle down. Lawson did not calm down; he instead chose to spew out more insults.
"You can't think," the middle-aged man told the commuters, repeatedly calling them small-minded. "You made a fool of yourselves."
By the time the train reached its next destination at Bedford Avenue, a group of riders proceeded to grab ahold of the unruly commuter and kick him out of the train car. Unphased, Lawson tried to reenter the car in the hopes of retrieving his belongings.
He did not succeed.
"F**k your bag, dude," an unseen passenger yelled out as others continued to push the man away from the train.
Though the group did eventually keep Lawson from reentering, he was handed one more beatdown before the train doors closed: this one in the form of soup.
More information was revealed about the unruly passenger on Tuesday. Per the Gothamist, the Lime-A-Rita drinking Lawson announced in a now-deleted Facebook post that he was not apologetic for the clash and that he was just a "race-baiter… [who] enjoys getting a rise out of people."
The outlet later indicated that upon New Yorkers watching the footage, many reported that it wasn't the first time Lawson had chosen to badger train riders.
— Joey Mimosa (@JoeyMimosa) May 26, 2017
A video posted in May shows Lawson once again taunting commuters. In this incident the footage shows him being punched in the face before being shoved off at the next train stop — no soup was spilled this time.
