A man is facing heat after being accused of spitting on a preschool-aged boy and calling him the n-word at a Hooters restaurant in Overland Park, Kansas on Monday (February 26).

Reports say the child wandered away from his family’s table while they were celebrating a birthday party. Apparently this made the man, who is also a firefighter, mad – and when one of the boy’s relatives went to bring him back to their table – the man called the kid racial slurs and spit on him.

“He basically said get that little ‘blank’ up off the floor,” a witness told KCTV. “The n-word started to get thrown around.”

That same witness said that the man used his occupation as a way to deescalate the situation when police were called and arrived. “I didn’t catch what the officer said to him, but his immediate response was ‘It’s OK, I’m a fireman,’” the witness recalled. “Like that was supposed to blanket cover everything for him.”

The witness also says he couldn’t hear everything that was said during the altercation but did believe things would become physical as tensions rose. The names of the supposed firefighter, the young boy and his family were not released.

Unsurprisingly, Overland Park police did not arrest the bigoted firefighter but claim they are continuing to work with the family and several people who claimed to be witnesses of the incident. The man is not out of the water though and could face criminal charges, including battery and making a criminal threat.