Hingham police have assigned extra patrols to the home of a Hingham woman, who is depicted in a video posted on YouTube engaging in a racial tirade against a black letter carrier outside her house back in October 2009.

The recently posted video of the incident has gone worldwide, fueling some beliefs — through a barrage of e-mails circulating on the Internet including her name, address and phone number — that Hingham is a racist town and that nothing was done.

Editor's note: The video contains graphic language some viewers will find offensive and disturbing. For that reason we opted not to provide a direct link to the video.

Editor's note: The video contains graphic language some viewers will find offensive and disturbing. For that reason we opted not to provide a direct link to the video.

Hingham police have assigned extra patrols to the home of a Hingham woman, who is depicted in a video posted on YouTube engaging in a racial tirade against a black letter carrier outside her house back in October 2009.

The recently posted video of the incident has gone worldwide, fueling some beliefs — through a barrage of e-mails circulating on the Internet including her name, address and phone number — that Hingham is a racist town and that nothing was done.

Although the victim, Hugson Jean, 47, of Roslindale — who was allegedly slapped in the face during the incident — said he does not want any harm to come to his former customer, the video has drawn so much attention that TV stations and other media have descended upon the woman’s home.

Jean claims he was subsequently fired from his job because the United States Postal Service “did not want to get involved in this assault.” He said the USPS never investigated the racially charged incident. “They thought if they did not deal with it, it would just disappear,” he said.

Jean, who had been on the job nine months and has not been able to find employment since, said that a year was long enough to wait for some kind of resolution. The union, which, he said, agreed there was compelling evidence to support him, ultimately sided with the USPS in his firing. He said the case, which is currently under appeal, should have gone to arbitration.

Jean said he posted the video last month on YouTube to draw attention to the case. Yesterday, he changed the “tags” (key words) to the video using the names of a range of media outlets to make the video more searchable on Google and other search engines. The video, which is in two parts, has now been viewed upwards of 150,000 times.

Jean said his firing was race-related. “They did not want a black person in there,” he said. He said he was treated differently than other employees. He said, for example, he had blurred vision after the assault and asked for an injury form, which he did not receive until after the 30-day window to submit the form had passed.

The USPS has denied Jean’s allegations and said it values its diverse workforce.

“The video posted on YouTube was quite disturbing,” spokesman Christine Dugas said in a prepared statement. ”We immediately pursued this incident, through the local police, which, in turn, pressed charges.”

Dugas went on to state that due to privacy act protections, the USPS is not permitted to discuss employee issues.

“That said, let me assure you that the employee’s job status has nothing whatsoever to do with the video. The Postal Service values our diverse workforce. In fact, Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity.”

The video captured on Jean’s cell phone depicts Erika Winchester, 60, becoming upset when Jean refuses to accept a certified letter that she had signed for. The video then shows her firing off a volley of racial slurs while Jean was seated in his Post Office truck.

Following the Oct. 9, 2009 incident, police summonsed Winchester — who allegedly slapped the postal worker on the face during the outburst – to court to face the charge of assault and battery/hate crime.

Police said Jean did not want to press charges when they talked to him immediately following the incident and at the hearing on Nov. 6, 2009, his attorney asked that the charge not be issued but be held in abeyance for a year and dropped if there were no further incidents.

However, Jean said while he did not want Winchester arrested, he thought she should be prosecuted. He said he was baffled when told what the police said about asking to have the charges dropped. He said he was never notified about the hearing and has been unable to obtain a transcript.

In a telephone interview Jean claimed that his supervisors “laughed it off” when he showed them his cell phone video. He claims they failed to tell him that Winchester had been banned from the Post Office previously. “Had I know that I would have conducted myself differently,” he said.

Jean said during the incident itself when he attempted to call his supervisor, it was Winchester who inadvertently gave him the idea to videotape the altercation. “When I picked up my cell phone, she said she did not care if I videotaped her.” It was then he pushed the record button and he said he is happy he did. He said without the video, no one would have believed him.

When interviewed for this story, Jean declined to provide Winchester’s name and address because he did not want any harm to come to her.

In a telephone interview today, Winchester said several years ago she had been “shooed out” out of the Post Office, with which she said she has had ongoing problems, over a dispute with a post office box. She had no idea about the YouTube video but said the media was on her doorstep.

Winchester, who was reluctant to talk without consulting her lawyer, described Jean as a nice man with whom she had had no prior problems in the months he had delivered her mail. She did not think the incident involving her could be related to his job loss.

“I am sorry for him and his job – but that has nothing to do with me,” she said. “He dropped the charges against me

“I did not have any charges against him.”