HOLLYWOOD, FLA. (WSVN) - A Broward nurse found a racial slur written onto a garbage can in front of a bus stop in Hollywood as she was driving into work.
The message was found along Johnson Street, east of Memorial Regional Hospital, on Monday.
“I was driving by yesterday to work,” Louisa Riviello, who spotted the message, said. “I slowed down because there was an accident. When I saw the garbage can, I was just floored.”
Scrawled onto the garbage can was the message: “Keep killing N-word.”
“It bothered me all day, all night, and I had to do something,” Riviello said.
Riviello, who works as a nurse at the hospital, walked up to the garbage can and spun it around, so passing drivers on Johnson Street could not see the inscribed slur.
However, she added, turning around the garbage can to hide the slur was not her point.
“It’s not the vandalism. It’s the message behind it,” Riviello said. “It’s that it’s real, and it’s here. People pretend like it’s not, but it is. I still want people to know that it’s there, it happens. Just to replace it doesn’t fix the problem.”
It is not clear who owns the garbage can, which has been removed from the area by the City of Hollywood.
“I think that it’s totally ridiculous,” a woman said. “I’m not surprised that somebody was bold to do that. I feel some type of way with somebody writing a racial slur like that. If you’re not looking within and you’re being racist, then you got to begin again.”
A Broward County Transit spokesperson said they do not believe they own the garbage can.
It is also unclear how long ago the message was inscribed onto the waste bin.
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