A Black woman says she and her daughters were racially profiled after a Walmart employee accused them of stealing an item they were in the process of paying for.
Solange Scott and her daughters were grocery shopping on Thursday at a Walmart in Scarborough, located at 799 Milner Ave near Highway 401 and Morningside Avenue.
Scott says they had been scanning items at the self-checkout when she noticed a store employee staring at her and her 13-year-old daughters.
Scott recalls asking the employee, “Is there something I can help you with?”
“She just got extremely aggressive, opened her arms really wide and did, like, a jump and she screamed and said, ‘What? It’s my eyes, I can stare wherever I want to,'” Scott told CBC Toronto on Friday.
It’s very sad. Now I have to be even extra cautious in stores to make sure that no one is eyeing me to make sure I’m not doing anything bad just because of how I look.
– Jordynn Scott, 13
Scott demanded to speak with a duty manager, at which point she says the employee started walking away while looking back and continuing to scream at them. Exactly what she was saying was muffled by her mask, Scott says.
She says that’s when a second woman, who also seemed to be an employee of Walmart, came and stood directly behind Scott and her daughters as they were checking out.
As Scott was paying for her items, she says, she heard the employee accuse her daughter Jurnee of failing to scan a box of Rice Krispies.
“I said, ‘Wait a minute, yes I did. We paid for everything,'” Scott told CBC Toronto..
But the employee wasn’t convinced, Scott says, and told her daughter that she had picked up the cereal box, put it down, and didn’t scan it.
Scott said she demanded that the employee stop speaking to her daughter and instead bring a duty manager to speak with them. After waiting for 40 minutes, Scott says the duty manager arrived.
Scott says it seemed like he “didn’t care” when she explained what happened, but that he said he would speak to his employees about the incident.
She says she pushed back, telling him that she and her daughters “just experienced trauma from this establishment,” and that she wanted an apology. But Scott says the duty manager made it clear that there was nothing further he could do.
Scott filmed part of the incident, which she later posted to Twitter, saying she was “broken and angry.”
