Martin Hyde Admits To Telling Puerto Rican Tennis Players To 'Go Cut Grass'

In another shocking episode of blatant racial bias by a powerful figure; a video that recently surfaced shows a visibly agitated Puerto Rican tennis player lashing out at Republican Martin Hyde for passing condescending racial remarks.

“You’re telling me to cut grass because I’m Hispanic,” one of the players said, in the video. “That’s racism, man; how can you say something like that? Aren’t you human?” he added.

The video was shared online by Javier Irizarry, the uncle of the tennis player, in the hopes that something like this would never happen again. In the video, a bunch of young players can be seen confronting Hyde for making racist statements and instructing them to leave the Celsius Tennis Academy.

Things took an ugly turn when it appeared that the Republican was least remorseful of his acts. “Yes, so what?” Hyde is heard saying in the video. It is alleged that Hyde also provoked the boys to call the Chief of police— who was allegedly known to Hyde. The claims made by Irizarry was supported by another player, who happened to be around at the time of the incident. He, too, mentioned that Hyde told him to “cut grass” and that Hyde had questioned him about his ethnicity. On being told that he was from Puerto Rico, Hyde reportedly hurled a slew of abuses –“shut the f--- up, f------ asshole.”

The player also alleges that Hyde later tried to crack a deal with him— by offering to pay $50,000 in exchange for the video. The latter, however, was denied by Hyde. Claiming that albeit he was regretful for his boorish behavior, he had never offered any money to the young player.

The video was posted on Twitter by Alvin Couto de Jesus, a Puerto Rican attorney who got the video from Irizarry. The video amassed widespread momentum on social media and other news outlets, soon after. Celsius Tennis Academy director Cary Cohenour, which leases courts to the club recently released a statement to a media outlet.: “We have kids from all over the world, Central America, Latin America, who play here and compete to get scholarships for college. The whole incident was out of control and though Celsius wasn’t involved, we want people to know that we denounce racism here.”

While Irizarry maintained that they did not wish to sue Hyde for using racial slurs, they hoped the video would bring notice to the incident. Irizarry, who is also an attorney, felt his nephew was being unfairly targeted and this was the first incident of this kind that ensued whilst the tennis played trained.

The incident resulted in Hyde’s removal from the position of a club member of the Bath & Racquet Tennis Club. This isn’t the first time that Hyde has been in the eye of a controversy. Recently, the Republican was fined as a part of a settlement regarding a complaint of election law violations. Hyde vehemently denied the allegations back then, as well.

While a detailed investigation into the matter remains, Hyde has expressed that he feels he’s being framed—hinting that he was 'being used as “a pawn” in a larger “legitimate” agenda about Puerto Rico’s issues with the mainland U.S', as per a report.