Manager of Thai restaurant in Texas attacked online after posting racist Facebook rant about Sandy Hook shootings

Manager of Thai restaurant in Texas attacked online after posting racist Facebook rant about Sandy Hook shootings
Eddie Nimibutr, the manager of Austin’s Thai Noodles Etc., wrote on Facebook that ‘I don’t care if a bunch of white kids got killed.’ Many found the remarks tasteless.
By Carol Kuruvilla / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, December 18, 2012, 4:42 PM



Facebook and Yelp users have called for a boycott of Eddie Nimibutr's Thai Noodles Etc. House restaurant in Austin, Texas.



A restaurant manager’s controversial response to the deadly Connecticut school shootings has caused an uproar on the Web.

While details about the massacre spread on Friday, Eddie Nimibutr, who runs Thai Noodles Etc. in Austin, Texas took to his Facebook page to post this message:

“I’m failing to give a damn about the CT shooting. I don’t care if a bunch of white kids got killed,” he wrote, according to the Huffington Post.

He went on to say that violence directed against minority groups doesn’t get much media coverage.

“When Israel launched missiles at the school on Gaza, everybody was too busy j------ off,” he wrote. “Why should i care about people who don’t give a damn about me?”

If people didn’t care before, they do now.

Nimibutr’s remarks went viral and sparked an online attack against both him and his business. A Facebook page dedicated to the incident called for a boycott and has gathered more than 500 likes. The curators of the page want Nimibutr to honor the 26 victims of Sandy Hook on his social media accounts for the next 20 days. If he refuses to comply, they won’t take the page down.

“You took this horrible tragedy and made it about yourself,” the curators of the page wrote. “You pressed narcissism, racism, contempt, and hatred. It is time to make it about the children.”

On Yelp, Thai Noodles Etc. House has been getting numerous complaints about its owner. Many recent Yelp reviewers have also called for a boycott of Nimibutr’s restaurant. Some threatened physical harm.

In retaliation to the negative responses, Nimibutr posted this on his Facebook page:

“If you don’t like me or my opinions, I suggest you to unfriend me and ---- off,” he wrote. “I am pretty much sick of some people telling me what to think, how to think, or how to feel today, and if you don’t like my foods, ---- off and eat someplace else.”

But after receiving multiple death threats, Nimibutr tried to make amends during an interview with KEYE-TV news.

“Maybe it was a little insensitive to write something like that on the day of the shooting,” he said, refusing to turn his face to the camera. “It was not my intention to piss anyone off. It was my way to cope and decompress from the event that just happened.”

Nimibutr added that he had intended to make a political point about the need for something to be done about gun violence.

Nimibutr has deleted his Facebook page as of Tuesday.