The owner of Spin Gal Fitness, a fitness studio on La Peer Drive in West Hollywood, has been accused of throwing hot coffee on a Latino worker at her condo building and called him and a coworker “Mexican wetbacks.”
On Aug. 4, Miguel Angel Sánchez arrived at 8 a.m. at the Park Century East condo building at 2332 Fox Hills Drive in Century City to work on another owner’s condo unit. Sánchez, who was equipped with an automatic gate opener and keys, went downstairs to let in his coworker Jesses and encountered a woman arguing with him.
“She wasn’t allowing him to come inside because she did not believe that we had the authority to be there,” Sánchez said in an interview with Latino Rebels, a website that covers Latino news and culture. Sánchez said the woman starting yelling racial slurs at them, like “Mexican wetbacks.” Sánchez videotaped the woman’s actions and later posted the video on Facebook.
KTLA 5 posted a story about the incident on its website on Friday. Sánchez’s Facebook post caught the attention of users of the Nextdoor app, who identified the woman as Rhonda Michelle Polon, owner of Spin Gal Fitness. A longer video posted on the VivaBernie2020 Facebook page shows a man apparently connected with Polon getting into the argument. He accused the Latino workers of stealing his bicycle.
Sánchez called the Los Angeles Police Department whose officers told him he could file charges against Polon. He decided not to.
The Viva Bernie 2020 group hosted a “Café y Pan Dulce Mariachi Party for CoffeeCity & Bathrobe Billy,” the names with which they tagged Polon and her associate, this morning in front of their condo building.
The video of Polon throwing coffee on Sánchez has gone viral and led many on social media to say they will boycott the business. WEHOville was unable to reach Polon for a comment. However, in an email message to Latino Rebels, she wrote:
“I made no rasist [sic] remarks ever!!
“They spliced the video to their liking.
“I am not rasist.[sic]
“I threw cold coffee on him after 45 minutes of be harassed by them.
“I was then scared and did not know what else to do.
“I had nothing to do with the argument that insued [sic] afterwards with the other persons involved.
“I have nothing else to say.
“I am being harassed for protecting the safety of my home and myself.
“The police have been contacted in regards to these claims and harassment’s [sic] of and to me “and there will be no further remarks from me.”
I know Ronda and she’s anything but racist. After viewing the entire undoctored video not the spliced version that was released,this is obviously a shakedown. I’d be willing to bet these guys have done this to other people.
That makes it okay to call them wetbacks and throw coffee on that man? Ignorance must be bliss. Losing her business is what she deserved, and I hope she is never able to run a business again.
Is that why she threatened his wife and kids? That kind of behavior is 100% unacceptable. She didn’t even apologize properly. You can’t go around doing bigoted things and abusing your privilege, without any remorse or humility, and then act like a victim when you are exposed.
Pelon. Definition according to the urban dictionary. Often used as slang for either a bald Hispanic or one’s p–nis. Quieres mamar mi pelon?
Pelón and Polon are 2 different words.
With a name like “Polon” she shouldn’t be throwing her weight around calling other Latinos “wetbacks”!
Polon is Italian not Spanish, given a lot of Latinos have Italian surnames including myself but I doubt this woman is Hispanic.
Why isn’t anybody talking about how this woman threatened Mr Sanchez’ children and wife.
She needs to be arrested for that!
What..she threatens him and the childen? Can you give more details details?
http://www.latinorebels.com/2018/08/12/womanwhothrewhotcoffeeidentified/
Screenshots of her threatening the family is in this article.
It is shameful that the assaulted men chose not to file charges, if you are a minority and have been assaulted and choose not to follow through and file charges then don’t complain you are part of the problem follow through and hold these racists accountable for their action
That’s not fair to say. Like the guys mentioned, they were scared about losing their job. It would be nice to think they wouldn’t but you can’t just assume there won’t be any repercussions for the workers, especially when a white woman is involved.
So you are saying, victims are part of the problem and it is their fault they are being targeted? Did you read the part where the employees stated they did not press charges in fear of losing their jobs? Also, one of them was threatened, his wife and kids.
Even better he got a ton of support and the video went viral. Let the world judge for themselves is more than enough.
What they did was better than filing charges. This *woman* is about to lose everything. Legal action would’ve gone nowhere, and likely led to repercussions against the men.
Extremely clear to me she is racist
Unbelievable behavior!!!
How can she live with herself
She also sent a threatening text to the wife of the man she threw coffee on, where she claimed the video was “spliced,” just like she did in the email to WeHoVille.
Crazy that there are people saying her behavior was perfectly acceptable just because the coffee was cold.
She said she threw the coffee because she was scared and did not know what else to do. Yeah, right. People in fear usually run away and call for help. They don’t hang out for 45 minutes spewing insults.
She thought she could take out her aggression on them, treat them like garbage. She thought they were insignificant, and that nobody would care if she hurt them.
Totally disgusting behavior.
what is amusing is that most folks are interracial.
thus the arguments in this edited pos video is invalid.
like with most videos.
i can’t make judgement on anything i see “post publish” sorry.
i think everyone in the video is a racist, her, the contractor, the workers who were contracted, the people who watched it, the sites that are posting it, the new agencies who are broadcastings it and those who will be discussing it after the fact.
sorry, bigotry is as bigotry does.
don’t be hypocrites.
You’re the only logical person here on the internet, that’s sad.
You’re a apologist for racist “conduct”. You must have agreed with POTUS when he said there are “good people on all sides” in reference to neo-Naz!’s and counterprotesters at Charlottsville — you make a super weak excuse for xenophobia.
Didn’t you watch the video?
This lady is a disgrace..
I feel most contractors they just get the notice of the job, details and keys and that’s it, whoever hired them dont always notified the whole building- I quite often see notifications in buildings housing complex if the job will make a lot of noise or affect all etc. It might have been a small ish job that they had to do so prob the person who hired them did not see a need to make flyers, send emails to the rest of the residents. Having the keys to the place and the control for the parking garage gate and… Read more »
This woman is a disgrace to the area, and human decency in general. I hope she is able to turn her life around. As a fitness instructor she has probably spent a lot of time working on improving her exterior self, this may be a good time to work on improving her heart, mind and soul as well. However, based on her response, denying what is clearly videotaped, I kind of doubt she will take ownership of her actions and start growing anytime soon. You made your bed, lie in it. But first please move out of the area. Hate… Read more »