Kroger Manager Accused of Racial Profiling After Calling Cops On Black Teens Buying Snacks

By Nina Golgowski

“I asked him what we did, and he was like, ‘We’ve had problems with people like you before,’” one teen said.

A Texas woman is speaking out after she said her teenage sons and nephews, who are black, were racially profiled by a Kroger store manager who called the police on them, reasoning “they looked like they could be shoplifters,” she said.

The woman, Ukiah Swain, said four of her family members — ages 15, 16, 19 and 20 — went to the store in Mesquite to buy snacks Thursday night when, after purchasing their items, they were stopped and accused of theft.

“He waited for them to pay before calling police,” she told HuffPost on Tuesday, referring to the assistant manager. “He didn’t say anything to them. Someone else told them that he was going to go call the police.”

The four of them produced receipts for their purchases, Swain said, adding that responding police officers wrote up the young men and issued them trespass warnings on instruction from the manager.

Swain, who said she rushed to the store after getting a call from her son and began broadcasting to Facebook Live, said it only got worse when she confronted the assistant manager, who is white, about his reason for the accusation.

He said they looked like they could be shoplifters,” she said of the man’s assessment of her sons and nephews.

Her 16-year-old son, Zavarion Swain, said he received a similar response from the man after asking him what the problem was.

“I looked at the manager and I asked him what we did and he was like, ‘We’ve had problems with people like you before,’” Zavarion Swain told NBC Dallas–Forth Worth.

The Mesquite Police Department, reached by WFAA, said the store’s employees said they have had issues with kids loitering in the store and shoplifting. The department added that any business may request that officers issue criminal trespass warnings for any reason.

Read the full article here

Read more Breaking News here

View more galleries from the ABHM here