A New York City public school teacher and youth baseball coach has been reassigned “away from students” at his school and relieved from his coaching duties after a video of him shouting homophobic remarks surfaced on social media.
Juan Ynoa, a teacher at Flushing High School in the borough of Queens, can be seen yelling an anti-gay slur and threatening sexual assault from his car in a video that went viral on social media last week.
Ynoa was directing his tirade at Matthew Kevelson — who recorded the video — following an incident of road rage earlier this month, Kevelson told NBC New York. Kevelson, a musician known as Mattykevs, said the incident started after Ynoa cut across three lanes of traffic.
“Hey, jerk off! What’s up, you f---ing jerk off?” Ynoa can be heard shouting. “I’ll rape your f---ing a--, you faggot.”
Before getting out of his car to take a picture of Kevelson’s license plate, Ynoa can then be heard saying, “You’re messing with the wrong dude.”
The New York City Department of Education said in an email Wednesday that Ynoa was reassigned “away from students pending an investigation” after officials learned about the video.
New York Longhorns Baseball, the youth travel baseball team Ynoa coached, said Saturday that it had “relieved” a staff member — without naming Ynoa — “of his duties” upon learning about “a verbal altercation.”
“The actions, words and sentiments expressed by the former member do not align in any way with the Longhorns core values and mission to provide a positive and supportive place for baseball players to develop into young adults both on and off the field,” the team wrote on Facebook.
Ynoa, who can be seen wearing a New York Longhorns Baseball shirt in the viral video, said in an email to NBC New York that he could eventually give his side of the story, but he did not provide further details. “Now is not a good time,” he wrote.
Kevelson told NBC New York that he feared retaliation and posted the video on social media as “a form of protection in case anything happened” following the incident in Wantagh, New York, about 35 miles east of New York City.
“This guy is around children,” Kevelson added. “If he’s a coach, if he’s a teacher in the community, a leader of the community, he can’t be acting like that in public.”
