CT couple arrested for harassing Puerto Rican landscapers

A Connecticut couple was charged with disorderly conduct after berating a pair of Puerto Rican landscapers and accusing the brothers of being in the US illegally.

The ugly caught-on-camera confrontation began when Robert Shaw, 62, and Sharon Bourgeois-Williams, 58, verbally attacked the landscapers who were working on a nearby home in Middletown, Connecticut.

The couple originally approached Jose Martin and his brother, who are both Puerto Rican, to complain about the noise, but the confrontation quickly escalated.

“I was thinking that she was going to ask us for work or do something in her yard,” Martin told WFSB. “As soon as I saw her cussing us out, I grabbed my phone right away. I said ‘Okay, this is going to be a problem.’”

The brothers were cutting up trees when the couple approached to complain.

Bourgeois-Williams can be seen on a video posted to Facebook: “J. Martin Landscaping likes to video people that complain that they have made noise all f–king day. You keep wanting to make noise in the neighborhood? We don’t do that s–t here.”

The couple also filmed the Martin brothers as the two brothers calmly stood in the street. They complained the pair had been “making noise all day” and asked “what they have done” before asking them if they spoke English.

“Take some good videos so that you have to go back over the border,” Bourgeois-Williams said. “You guys are clowns. Do you have a visa? Do you have a visa to be here? Do you have a visa to be here? Are you here legally?”

Bourgeois-Williams continued to harass Jose’s brother, who was only heard speaking Spanish to his brother on the video, while Shaw bothered him: “You make noise all day and you don’t give a s–t.”

Bourgeois-Williams then accused the brothers of being here illegally and suggested the police be called. Martin eventually called the police for harassment.

The couple was arrested because their hostile behavior prevented one employee from moving freely in the roadway,” Middleton Police told WFSB.

Brenda De Jesus, a relative of the brothers, said the two men “never stepped foot on their property.”

“They were just doing their job and these racist and disgusting people did all of this because of the noise of the lawn mower, trimmer, etc.,” De Jesus wrote.