Women Accused of Shoplifting at Florida Walgreens Claim They Were Racially Profiled
Two black women claim they were racially profiled while shopping at a Florida Walgreens.
Cousins Crystal Davis and Santanna Neal told Inside Edition they were on employees' radars from the moment they walked into the store in Miramar.
"We heard, 'Security, check the floor,'" said Davis.
The store manager, who is also a black woman, then proceeded to call the police on them. As the women walked outside, they were stopped.
"Before we could make it to our car, three officers just swarmed around us," Davis said.
The women were taken back inside, where officers looked through their purses in front of the whole store. Following a thorough search, it was determined that the women had paid for all their items.
For their part, the women wish the incident had been handled better.
"There's a line where you can be suspicious and do your job, but a part of doing your job is being sure — 'Let me be sure that they're actually stealing something before I get police involved,'" Davis said.
Walgreens said it is investigating the incident.
"First and foremost, we firmly believe everyone should be welcome and treated with respect at our stores, and we'll continue working to make sure that happens," the company said.
"Our policies strictly prohibit any form of discrimination or racial profiling, and any such occurrence will not be tolerated. We've been in contact with our customer, we take this matter very seriously and are sorry it happened. We continue to investigate this issue so we can learn how this happened and to prevent similar incidents in the future."
This is just the latest in a string of high-profile cases, including one involving two black men who were arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks in April after asking to use the bathroom when they hadn’t bought anything. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson ultimately apologized to the men and the company ended up shuttering 8,000 stores for a day of anti-bias training last month.
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