Texas security guard racially profiled three separate Black women shopping at Kroger — and assaulted one: report
On Thursday, FOX 26 reported that a security guard at a Kroger grocery store in Houston, Texas is being accused of racial profiling, with him allegedly targeted three Black women in separate incidents — and assaulting one of them.
"All three encounters were captured on video. On June 21, Shelondra Peavy recorded her inside the Kroger on 249 and Antoine," reported Gabby Hart. "She says she couldn't carry anymore in her hands, so she dropped some of her items in a clear Kroger produce bag and continued shopping. That's when she says the Allied Universal Security guard seen in the video accused her of stealing. During their encounter, the guard can be heard admitting that he called her 'Black and ugly.'"
"Just two months prior on April 13, Stephanie Teel, a woman with special needs had an encounter with the same security guard," said the report. "Stephanie was with her cousin, Kamesha Sterling, when she opened a Kroger burger inside the store and started eating it. Sterling says she had every intention of paying for it when they got to the register. But the security guard approached them, an altercation ensued, and eventually, he pepper-sprayed and dragged Stephanie from the store."
A third woman, Teel's cousin, says that the same guard followed her out of the store a month later and demanded to know if she was carrying something in her bag.
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According to the report, Kroger has released a statement that the guard in question will be terminated. "We expect all third-party contractors to live up to those values, which also include respect, diversity, and inclusion," said the company. "We will not tolerate this type of behavior from third-party providers that operate within our stores."
This report comes just weeks after ten Black shoppers were gunned down in a Buffalo, New York grocery store by a white supremacist — an incident that, along with the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, led to President Joe Biden and Congress passing the first major new federal gun safety legislation since 1994.
Watch the original report below.