Hackers go on racist hate speech rant during livestream Easter service
Grace Baptist was site of November stabbing that killed two, injured three
The pastor of Grace Baptist Church is seeking justice after a hacker went on a minuteslong racist rant and made several threats against Black people, Jews and the LGBTQ community during Easter Sunday service.
The Rev. Pastor George Oliver — who started as pastor March 1 — said during a news conference Wednesday that the church has been in contact with San Jose police and Zoom after three young boys went on a fiveminute-long racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic screed, interrupting Sunday service and horrifying congregants.
San Jose police told this news organization that they are starting an investigation.
The hack and racist rant come as the church community
— a progressive congregation in downtown San Jose that accepts all walks of life and works with the homeless — continues to heal from a fatal stabbing spree that left two dead and three wounded.
During the church’s first outdoor service since the stabbings, Barbara Taft of Mesa, Arizona, described the incident in a witness account. She called the rant “reminiscent of the way that members of the KKK and other such groups speak.”
During the hack, she said the first thing that popped up on her screen Sunday was a young White man, “perhaps 18 years of age,” who was sitting calmly at first but then began to play loud music to drown out the church service. After that, the man started to rant “using the F-word at least 40 times, most of the time followed by the Nword.”
In one string of obscenities,
Taft recalled the person saying “(racial slur) make monkey noises” and they are “stinky (racial slur)” followed by “(profanity) Jews, I want to gas all the (profanity), stinky Jews” followed by several homophobic slurs.
Taft then describes a third voice from a young kid “maybe about 11 years old” who was giggling along and repeating some of what he heard from the older boys, including saying “Spanish (racial slur), I hate Spanish people. What the heck, boogaloo, boogaloo, boogaloo.”
Taft said “he was giggling and he acted proud of himself for talking like these older kids,” whom she described as between ages 16 and 18. At one point, one of the kids turned his back to the camera and pulled his pants down, “waving his … bare backside at the camera as he continued to rant.”
“The dialogue was largely blanked out by the fact the the boys were tripping all over themselves to keep repeating the F-word and the N-word, but there was one more clear sentence which was ‘I want to rub a cheese grater over their (profanity) lips,’ ” Taft wrote. “This was shortly before their hacking was finally cut short.”
Outraged by the racist rant, Pastor Oliver said it is “unconscionable” that this would happen in a house of worship and is calling on people to help bring these kids to justice.
Oliver posted the video of the rant on YouTube and said he’s meeting with San Jose Police Chief Anthony Mata today to discuss pressing charges and the investigation.
Oliver said San Jose police told him the department may need a warrant for information from Zoom, but the video-conferencing company said it also
is willing to cooperate with any investigation by law enforcement.
“We wanted to reiterate how very much we regret that you experienced this meeting interruption,” Zoom said in its response to the church. “These types of disruptions are intolerable, and Zoom is absolutely committed to taking action.”
SJPD spokesperson Sergeant Christian Camarillo said in a statement that the police “have taken the report and just started
the investigation; it will be investigated as a hate crime.”
“We take all these incidents seriously and will conduct a thorough investigation,” Camarillo said.
It was the first time the church was back in service after the November stabbings, when a man and a woman were killed — and three other people were injured — during an event at the church intended to give homeless people a warm place to stay during the winter cold. A suspect was arrested in connection with the attack, which made national headlines and shocked church staff and volunteers.
Oliver said he is crushed that the church’s reopening after such a tragic event “was spoiled.”
“We are still mending,” Oliver said about the November stabbing. “It’s unconscionable to further exacerbate those wounds with this callous treatment toward mothers and grandmothers, many of them Black and Latino.”
Oliver said the incident was likely not random but the confluence of several
events — the highest holiday in Christianity, the last day of the Jewish holiday of Passover and the anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. Oliver said he recognizes that the church needs to beef up its security.
“That Sunday was no ordinary Sunday, this is not an ordinary church, I am not an ordinary pastor and this was not an ordinary
attack,” Oliver said. “But we will resist this hatred. We don’t want this to be the defining image of this church.”
Oak Grove School District board member Beija Gonzalez, who volunteers at the church, said the church, its congregants and its pastors should be “protected at all costs” and called on city officials to give the church whatever support they can.
“A lot of hearts were broken,” Gonzalez said. “We cannot look at this new presidency and be complacent. This is happening in our own communities; people are still being attacked. We opened our doors to the houseless, the LGBTQ community and others.
“For those reasons we were attacked. We need your support.”