Twitter screenshot Corinne Terrone
Corinne Terrone is a now-former Hamden Public Schools employee who has been reported to state child protective services authorities after she was caught on video repeatedly cursing and screaming the n-word at an African-American couple while shopping in an East Haven ShopRite supermarket in Connecticut.
Terrone, who resigned from her position with the Hamden school district after the video of the incident went viral on March 16, is seen at the end spitting toward the couple as she shouts the racist slurs. Twice.
In the video, Terrone, 40, whose maiden name is Magoveny, can be seen with two young children with her, who she identifies as “my kids.” School officials have contacted the Connecticut Department of Children and Families because of the “traumatic” event. There’s widespread condemnation of Terrone. But not by all.
The audio content below is explicit and unedited and contains numerous racist epithets and foul language.
The East Haven Police Department released the unedited version of her 911 calls to Heavy following a Freedom of Information request.
According to Lt. Joseph Murgo, she made a number of calls.
“The first call placed was made in error to the Easton, CT police department. On the recordings, she continues her hate-filled speech to a police dispatcher who finally advises her that she has called the wrong police department.”
In this brief call, she begins to tell the dispatcher what occurred and when she was told she needed to hold on, she shouted: “Don’t you dare put me on hold. Oh, Jesus Christ.”
She was told she had called the wrong police department and she hung up.
Subsequent recordings are of calls placed to the East Haven Police Department.
Terrone, who refers to herself by her maiden name Magoveny, delivers an expletive and racial epithet-laden description of what she said occurred. She claims she was walking in the grocery store near the check-out and turned to her young daughters and said: “Jesus Christ.” She does not provide context for what she was describing. She says a black man in a “scooter” asked if she was talking to him and called her a bitch.
“He called me a bitch so I called him a ni**er.” She said the man got up and “threatened me” and that there was “spitting going back and forth.”
She repeated that she called the man a “ni**er because he called me a bitch.”
She then proceeded to tell the 911 dispatcher to get an East Haven police officer to her house so she could press charges.
She said the man was with two “fat black bitches which I won’t call ni**ers because they weren’t behaving like ni**ers…somebody better do something now …”
Terrone continues:
“That place is full of cockroaches and now I have to deal with being called a bitch by a ni**er in front of my kids? I don’t think so.”
She says she left her coat in the Shoprite parking lot because it had “his dirty disgusting AIDS-infected ni**er spit on it…”
Terrone then demands a police officer be sent to her house and when she gives her address, the dispatcher says he can’t send a cop because she does not live in the police department’s jurisdiction. “Of course, you can’t,” she mocks. “Then tell me what’s going to be done to arrest the ni**er who assaulted me verbally?”
“I want a fucking cop doing something now. I don’t want any excuses,” she shouts at the dispatcher.
The dispatcher says she can come into the police station and file a report since the store is in East Haven jurisdiction. She’s incredulous: “Are you fuc*ing kidding me? You think I know that ni**er’s name? You think I know that ni**er’s name? That’s all he is to me. A fuc*ing ni**er because he called me a bitch.”
As Terrone mocks, insults and demeans the dispatcher, she agrees to meet an East Haven police officer in the Shoprite parking lot but demands that the officer be white.
“Is it someone who’s not going to be racially biased? Is it going to be a white person because I am not dealing with a sp*c or a ni**er because I am way beyond that point.”
The dispatcher asks what kind of car she drives and she says it’s none of his business. He says the officer will need to be able to locate her. She says she’s going into Shoprite. He says not to do that. “Oh, but I am.” He replies: “Oh, but you’re not.”
She said she was told by her uncle this “wasn’t going how this was supposed to happen.” She tells the dispatcher her uncle is a New Haven Police Department detective.
The dispatcher says her uncle was wrong.
A Sgt. John Magoveny retired from the New Haven Police Department in 2011. In 2004, the New Haven Register reported that Magoveny “pleaded no contest to a charge of making a false statement” in relation to an incident involving his ex-wife and “avoided prison time during his recent sentencing.”
The call lasted nearly six minutes before she hung up.
It was reported Monday night that Terrone “was taken by New Haven police for an involuntary mental evaluation.”
Here’s what you need to know about Corrine Terrone:
1. Terrone Screams Ni**ers Numerous Times & Spits at Black Couple in a Supermarket on a Friday Evening With Her Young Daughters Beside Her, the Video Shows
The video was originally shared by Facebook user Tatiana Winn. It’s since been set to private.
The video begins with Terrone screaming, “…I will. Don’t you dare talk to me like that in front of my children motherfucker.” A few words are inaudible until she’s heard saying “they’re fucking ni**ers in East Haven, that’s why.”
The man to whom she was directing her rage can be seen heading toward Terrone as people he’s with hope to calm him down, saying, “Don’t do it.” But Terrone yells, “put your hands on me. Come on. Come on,” and then points her phone close to his face as if to record. Another man attempts to get between them when the first man pushed the phone out of her hand and walks away.
But Terrone hurries after him shouting, “Oh you motherfuc*er, you motherfuc*er. That’s why there’s ni**ers in East Haven. And when a person who appears to be a store employee comes toward her Terrone yells: “Fuck you. ni**er.”
Terrone comes at the couple and spits at them. Twice.
2. East Haven Police Told Heavy They Want to ‘Explore Criminal Charges,’ but Need Victims to Come Forward
In an email to Heavy, East Haven Police Lieutenant Joseph Murgo said he contacted Winn and the victims in the video but “received no response.” He said a reporter indicated the people did not want to “come forward for whatever personal reasons they may have.”
“…we are interested in exploring criminal charges and that we want the recipient of these vicious slurs and spitting to come forward.”
Murgo called the incident “senseless and hate-filled.” He said the police have reached out to “everyone involved (to get to) the bottom of this senseless hate filled incident that needs to be investigated further. At the current time, we have still not received any communication from the victim or anyone involved.”
Here’s the East Haven Police incident report:
Police still say there’s no formal complaint filed.
3. Hamden Schools Superintendent Named Terrone to the Media & Contacted Families & Employees to Condemn the School Clerk
The incident occurred Friday, March 14 in the evening. By late Saturday morning, the school district responded.
Hamden Schools Superintendent Jody Goeler identified Terrone. A statement from the school district said Terrone “has resigned from her position.” She was a Hamden Public Schools central office administrative clerk.
A message was sent to Hamden schools families that said in part, that Terrone was identified, and contacted to come in for an “investigatory” meeting. But “shortly after final arrangements were made today for the investigatory meeting the employee tendered her resignation effective immediately.”
The district says the “language (Terrone) used in the video is in conflict with the values” of the school district and “someone who will use that sort of language in any setting whether public or private is not someone we want anywhere near our children.”
4. The School District Reported Terrone to the Connecticut Department of Children & Familes & Police Have Also Spoken With the Child Protective Services Agency
Terrone had her two children with her at the store who can be seen in the video taken in the supermarket. Two grade-school-age girls. In the video, the youngest appears to be distraught.
The Hamden school superintendent said that since “the employee’s children witnessed her conduct …(b)ecause her children were present, school administrators filed a DCF report,” meaning the Connecticut Department of Children and Families. “We hope that her children receive the support they need after witnessing such a traumatic event.”
Murgo told Heavy the East Haven Police have been in contact with DCF “which fulfilled our duties as mandated reporters, as it appeared her children were present during the incident.”
5. Terrone, Whose Overt & Aggressive Racism Has Been Met with Outrage, Has a Low Profile on Social Media & Her Family’s Facebook Pages Don’t Appear to be Addressing the Incident
The video, uploaded Saturday night and shared all over the internet, has been viewed by millions. The original post has more than 5,000 comments, the overwhelming majority are ones of outrage. On Sunday, the video on winn’s page was set to private and not shareable.
The mayor of Hamden said, “What I saw was vile and shocking.”
But not all were outraged and those who defended her were either quickly called out or found to be alleged trolls.
One person, Julia Mueller, said giving out her name and address could put her children in danger: “Way to go to all the asshats that gave out this womans address and pics of her house.. you just put 2 kids in danger. I’m not saying i agree with what she did but those kids don’t deserve to have to live in fear now and have people showing up at their house. I have family that live less than a 2 min walk from her, im going to tell them to keep the kids in the house for now till this blows over to be safe, this is a crazy world and people do crazy things, wouldn’t want to see one of my nieces hurt because someone was a scumbag and gave out this womans home address.”
Others quickly said she put her children in danger when she did what she did. And she was reported to the state child welfare authority by school officials.
Terrone’s Facebook page is under the name Corinne Mago-Terrone, the middle name apparently based on her maiden name, Magoveny. There are no posts on the page. Based on a cursory online search, relatives including Colleen Magoveny have not commented about the incident on social media.
The only legal matter that was found online during a cursory search related to Terrone is from a 2001 civil case concerning a car accident where she was the defendant.