Two Subaru Salesmen Insult Special Education Students, Facing Backlash

The GM of a dealership in Montana is doing damage control after two of his salesmen allegedly insulted special education students. The interaction occurred at a Starbucks, which is literally across a small street from Rimrock Subaru in Billings, Montana.

The incident took place when a high-school special education class visited the local Starbucks as part of a class field trip. Two salesmen from the store across the street reportedly walked in, saw the coffee shop filled with students from local West High School special education class and then left. However, on their way out, it’s been reported that two teachers and two student aides heard the salesmen say that there’s “too many f****** retards in this place.” It’s a statement that wasn’t taken lightly, and for good reason. The exact date when the incident occurred is not currently known, however, on June 7th of this year the dealership began to hear feedback about what their salesmen reportedly said.

While the exact source of the original complaint, has yet to be identified, the notion that two dealership employees would walk into a nearby business and insult special needs children while representing the dealership is having a major negative impact on the digital reputation of the Montana store. On the Rimrock Subaru Facebook page, most of the reviews are one-star, 31 of them to be exact. Of those, 28 one-star reviews are directly related to the incident at the Starbucks from approximately one week ago. What the dealership general manager Ernie Lee is attempting to do is respond to the allegations. While not everyone is responding well to what he has said, he’s giving it a shot. Lee was on the Billings local 101.9 radio show with “Big J” to talk about the incident. During the discussion Lee expressed his outrage.

Speaking to 101.9, Lee said that the incident “sickened his soul.” He also said, “We have to make sure that we know as a community that this is unacceptable this is not in our house this is not who we are this is not what we do.” Lee noted that he has been bullied for his height his entire life as he’s 4 feet tall and he has no tolerance for discrimination. Lee furthermore explained, “The fact that two of my salespeople may have been involved in this, I have no patience for it and it makes me feel like vomiting in my mouth just talking about it.” To date the two salesmen involved in the incident have been punished but not terminated.

In light of the recent alleged incident, Lee noted his dealership staff is now undergoing sensitivity training. Speaking to 101.9 Lee explained that the sensitivity training has “taught us that you need to prepare for things you never thought that you’d have to prepare for.” Lee clearly understands that you would never think you would have to remind your staff to not say terrible things about special education students in a Starbucks, let alone while representing the dealership. We’ve reported  stories about dealers involved in public relations nightmares, however the dealers either often don’t respond to the situation or do so at first and then jump into silence. While many are outraged (as they should be) at what occurred at the Starbucks in Billings, the general manager Ernie Lee seems to be doing his best to address what happened and rebuilt the public image of his store.