An employee of the City of Coronado, California, and his wife, a private school teacher, were captured via TikTok this past weekend spewing anti-Asian comments in a parking garage at a Newport Beach shopping center in a post that has since gone viral.
Roger and Sandra Miller made a series of racist statements toward Asian Americans, prompting the people around them to record what was being said. In the clip, Sandra Miller can be heard saying, “America is a free country. Go back to China,” before she and her husband give the middle finger gesture and drive away.
While the original video has since been deleted, screen recordings of it have been uploaded to various social media platforms. The video is captioned, “This racist couple started calling us racial slurs out of nowhere and blamed Asians for starting COVID. They continued to say racist comments loudly for us to hear, so we confronted them.”
I've identified this man as Roger Miller, Director of Recreation and Golf in @CoronadoCity pic.twitter.com/ZI2MQkf09R
— Danesh (@thatdaneshguy) January 30, 2022
On Monday, the City of Coronado placed Roger Miller on administrative leave, while Sandra Miller was fired from her role at Linfield Christian School in Temecula.
Linfield school officials said in a statement on Twitter, “Linfield is aware of the video involving Ms. Sandra Miller. After speaking with Ms. Miller regarding the incident, Linfield has terminated her employment immediately. The statements made by Ms. Miller do not reflect the beliefs of Linfield, are inconsistent with Linfield’s mission statement, and fail to meet the behavior Linfield expects employees to model for its students.”
Likewise, the City of Coronado issued a statement yesterday from City Manager Tina Friend, which reads, “The City of Coronado does not tolerate any form of discrimination. The allegations are extremely serious and do not reflect the City’s culture and values, which are based on professionalism, service and respect.”
