Forgiving boss reveals why she will NOT fire employee seen furiously confronting woman over a parking spot in viral video

A forgiving boss stands up for her employees who lost their cool during a confrontation with a woman over a parking space in Newport Beach, California.

The original video, which eventually went viral, was recorded in early August and shows her employee Nigel Ford arguing with a woman named Manuela.

Manuela had parked her car on the street, but had jumped in a spot where Nigel had aimed.

At one point, Nigel was seen kicking and punching his body against the vehicle while being filmed.

The video was eventually seen by Nigel’s boss, Deena Saunders-Green, who runs a media company in nearby Long Beach, California.

Deena was inundated with messages from people demanding that Nigel be fired for his actions, but in a heartfelt video message she posted in response, she detailed why Nigel remains on the payroll.

“This young man? Yes, I know him. He works here at a company that I founded. Was it bad behavior? Absolutely. Should I fire him for that? Absolutely not,” Deena began.

“And why don’t I fire this man?” she asked, “because he shows up regularly to do the work that is necessary to work with Black artists and artists of color who have been impacted by systems like foster care.

“Did he have a terrible moment? Absolutely. Why don’t I fire him? Because I know his character,” she explained.

Deena then went on to say that she had received some scary messages after defending Nigel.

One of the captions read: ‘F***ing loser! I hope you get beat up every day, because you’re worthless.’

Another threatened: ‘You better hide and delete this account. If I find you, I will kill you.’

In the original one-minute video, Nigel can be seen walking from one side of the car to the other as he tries to explain to the driveway driver that he wanted to park in the same spot.

At one point he can be seen kicking the vehicle’s wheels and then using his body to push the vehicle forward.

“This is insane,” says the female driver in the vehicle. “Are you going to hit me or not?”

“Wherever you work, we’re going to love this,” you hear another woman in the car say.

Many people who commented on the video were not impressed with Nigel’s behavior.

“I hope he is raised not to approach a woman like that and be violent towards her car. She is next. I bet he will do it again to a girlfriend, wife or child,” one person wrote.

“I just want to thank you for posting this video. I knew him in real life and he was very violent. This is normal for him. I’m glad you’re okay and coped so well,” another added.

Meanwhile, his boss, Deena, explained that she thinks the pandemic provides an explanation for the seemingly irrational behavior people sometimes exhibit.

“We all survived a collective trauma, which was the pandemic. When the numbers went down, they all said, ‘Go back to work, everything is fine, everything is normal.’ It’s not back to normal, we’re not fine.

“Can you give people a little grace?” Deena asked viewers

She then revealed how Nigel worried that his videotaped outburst would give the media company he works for bad press. Nevertheless, Deena offers a dose of humanity in her take on the incident.

“We’ve all had moments where we would act like crazy if someone had videotaped us. Stay out of my DMs. I’m not firing him for showing up and doing the work – the work that a lot of other people don’t want to do.”

Her response was praised by many online commentators.

‘THIS IS A [sic] EMPLOYER. This. WOW. You are amazing,’ one person wrote.

“This is the most realistic, humanistic and sincere response I have ever seen on this app,” added another.

“We all have bad days, it’s amazing that you showed him grace,” a third added.

Later in a second video, Deena addressed the situation again after being inundated with messages calling on her to fire her employee, but this only made her resolve stronger.

“I don’t condone or tolerate any crazy behavior, but I know we’re all human and I know if someone hits me with their car, I’m going to react. And if there’s a video of just my reaction with no context…,” she says, before noting that the video only showed the end of a conflict.

“You guys, a lot of people are struggling with their mental health right now. The things that people are saying they want to do to this young man because they saw the end of a video. We are not okay,” she said.

Throughout the video, Deena continued to show great empathy for her employees

“I wish some of you would stand up for these kinds of women in real life.”

She went on to say that she doesn’t think Nigel deserves death threats and gives viewers a final reprimand.

“If you have video footage of him being crazy or doing something else under different circumstances, then we’ll talk. I’m not disrupting our activities, the life of this young man, as so many of you are.”

Nigel has since shared his side of the story and apologized, explaining that he was hit by the vehicle before the video started.

“I apologized to the girls for making them feel threatened,” he wrote online. “For context, the girls stole the spot we were waiting for a minute. They ran ahead to steal the spot.

“I got out of the car with the intention of clearing up the confusion. Instead of having a polite conversation, they drove on and hit me with their car before the video started. What you saw in the video is my reaction to being hit.”