A security guard at a New York airport got fired after passing a note to passenger Neal Strassner, who was passing through security check. The note read; “you ugly.”

Strassner was passing through the security checkpoint in Greater Rochester International Airport when the guard handed him a torn piece of paper with words written on it. The incident occurred in late June.

After he passed through the checkpoint, he started walking away when he heard the guard shout; “You going to open the note?”

Recalling the incident, Strassner stated, “I was more confused than anything. I kind of just looked at it and thought, ‘That was weird.'”

Later that afternoon, Strassner called the airport to file a complaint against the guard. He was told to stop by the airport’s security office when he returned to the airport for his flight home. Strassner is a technical coordinator, and travels weekly for work. On the day of the incident, he had been traveling to Wichita for work.

Strassner followed the advice he had been given on phone, and went to speak to a supervisor at the airport about the incident. As he recounted the story, he had a nagging feeling that the supervisor did not believe his story.

He decided to take further action, and began looking for the footage that would prove his story. “I called the airport and I tried to get the information and they said I had to talk to the county. I called the county, and they said that was the only way I could get it,” he said.

In the end, Strassner was able to obtain the security footage through the Freedom of Information Act.

Upon review of the footage, the guard was fired.