A Wichita man says he drove around for weeks with a racial slur printed on the oil-change sticker inside his truck, without knowing it was there.
Larry Martin Jr. had taken the truck to Rusty Eck Ford for service and initially thought nothing unusual had happened. He told KAKE News that he picked up the vehicle, assuming the dealership had changed the oil and returned it to him.
Weeks later, Martin said the dealership contacted him and asked him to look at the service sticker. He was told an employee had put something derogatory on it.
The sticker contained the N-word.
Since learning it was there, Martin said he notices the slur whenever he gets into the truck. “It’s humiliating,” he told the station. “It carries a lot of weight.”
Inside The Truck
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Martin showed KAKE where the sticker is as he got into the truck and started it. He said seeing it repeatedly has made the incident difficult to simply put behind him.
“It doesn’t go away,” he said. “I feel belittled, and I just want to know why.”
A text message shown in KAKE’s report appeared to come from a dealership representative. The message offered to replace the sticker and told Martin that one employee’s actions did not represent the company or its values.
By Monday, the dealership had taken a more consequential step.
One Employee Gone
Rusty Eck Ford told KAKE it became aware early the previous week of concerns involving alleged inappropriate conduct and opened an internal investigation.
“Based on information developed during the investigation, the company terminated the employment of one individual,” the dealership said.
The company said it does not tolerate racial, hateful, discriminatory, or otherwise inappropriate conduct in its workplace.
Rusty Eck Ford did not identify the former employee in the statement or provide additional details about what its investigation found. It said personnel confidentiality limited what it could publicly disclose.
The matter was not considered closed, however.
More To Review
Dealership leaders met with Martin and his family on Monday. According to the company, the family brought additional questions and information to that meeting that warranted further review.
Rusty Eck Ford said its investigation, therefore, remains ongoing and that it would take any additional action it considered appropriate based on its findings.
Martin’s daughter, Kelsey, told KAKE the meeting did not resolve all of the family’s concerns.
“No one deserves to be humiliated like this,” she said, adding that an apology was not enough to address what her father experienced.
For Martin, the unanswered question was more basic. He said he still wants to understand why someone working on his truck chose to put the slur somewhere he would eventually see it.