She’d already been arrested that day for a similar incident, but even that couldn’t make Anne Marie Messiano act like a decent human being on Saturday. Cell phone footage of Messiano berating and hitting fellow bus riders paints a too-clear picture of the harsh reality people of color face when encountering such blatant bigotry. Being silent is humiliating, but often safer, while violence lurks everywhere.
But, as cameraman Vladimir Philidore puts it, ”This is the world that we live in.”
In a quartet of short cell phone clips Philidore, 33, posted to Facebook on June 30, Messiano, 57, is first captured mid-rant, telling everyone on the bus to “shut up,” and warning fellow bus riders that if they want to call the police, she hopes “(they) all have (their) motherfucking papers.”
In the next clip, Messiano realizes she’s being filmed, while playing on her own phone. At first she seems undeterred, even blowing kisses at the camera, saying she “love(s) illegal immigrants, they do wonders for our country.”
In the next clip, though, Messiano starts telling people to “go back to your fucking country,” and railing about the First Amendment at the bus driver. She again seems to realize she’s being filmed, and approaches Philidore, while multiple voices tell her to stop.
The footage suddenly becomes a blurry, shaky mess, but it’s clear she’s got hands on him. Finally, one of her children is summoned to get her; a white man’s arm appears to usher her away, and the clip ends.
In the final clip, while she checks her body for injury from the violence she incited, Messiano rounds the bases with the N-bomb. She shouts “Fuck you, and your nigger fucking people. Okay? Get the fuck out of my country.”
For any xenophobes following along at home, Philidore wants you to know he was born in Brooklyn.
After the bus driver dialed 911, law enforcement arrested Messiano on a charge of disorderly conduct, apparently unaware of the video footage at the time. The racist’s name also remained a mystery, despite her pesky habit of being terrible.
Orangetown Police, who did not release the woman's name because she was only charged with violations, had also dealt with the woman earlier in the day for the same type of conduct.
Yep … she’d done this before, that same day, yet here she was, free to terrorize people of color again.
The case was then referred to the Rockland County Sheriff’s Office, since it all went down on a county bus. In the meantime, the Orangetown Town Commissioner took to Facebook to write a powerful and unapologetic statement—the sort that you don’t usually see come out of politicians who aren’t named Maxine Waters.
On Thursday, after further investigation, Rockland County Sheriff’s Office announced Messiano had been arrested for the additional charges of criminal obstruction of breathing and aggravated harassment. Her first court date is July 19.