Cody Blackbird
An area Arizona store proprietor interrupted an ESPN shoot this week to mock Native American performers — whereas yelling, “MAGA nation” — and the entire racist tirade is on video.
Cody Blackbird — who’s of Cherokee/Dakota descent, and was one of many Native American performers employed by ESPN for the Super Bowl promo — tells TMZ a dude named Gilbert Ortega began taunting the dancers from the entrance of his jewellery store Tuesday in downtown Scottsdale.
We’re advised Ortega was mimicking their actions and chants — in a demeaning method — and that prompted some within the group to return over and confront him whereas filming.
TMZ obtained some footage of the confrontation, and it exhibits Ortega was on the market to impress and posture … calling the Native Americans “f**king Indians,” invoking MAGA and telling them to return to Gallup, NM, which is house to a well known reservation.
Ortega even got here out for a tense face-to-face with the group at one level … on a dare to say what he was saying to their faces. So, yeah … he was searching for bother and making an attempt to get beneath the performers’ pores and skin. Unfortunately, he succeeded.
Luckily, there was no violence … Ortega was whisked away by a pal, and the entire thing fizzled out after he went again into his institution — a enterprise, BTW, that sarcastically sells Native American objects.
Some members of the Native American group had been upset sufficient to contact cops to complain. The Scottsdale Police Dept. tells us they’re investigating the incident as “potential disorderly conduct” … and, as of now, they do not see something that rises to the extent of a hate crime. That’s topic to vary based mostly on the investigation.