Racial profiling feared at Wal-Mart

[Thom Little]

By Mark Albright
St. Petersburg Times
Friday, Dec. 2, 2005


GAF Materials Corp. is handing out gift cards from Target as a reward to select employees this holiday season. That's because Wal-Mart, the discount store that held the business for years, last week called sheriff's deputies to apprehend a GAF manager on a bogus bad check rap while he was trying to buy this year's gift card supply.

"I keep going over and over the incident in my mind," said Reginald Pitts, the 34-year-old human resources manager for the roof material manufacturer's Tampa distribution center. "I cannot come up with any possible reason why I was treated like this except that I am black."

.......

Dressed in khaki pants and a blue button-down-collar dress shirt, Pitts finally got upset over the lengthy wait. He asked for the check back so he could go to another store. But store managers, who had kept huddled in a nearby office during most of his two-hour ordeal, refused to return it. The only explanation he got was that the store was having trouble "verifying" the check or who Pitts was. Later, two Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies appeared. One grabbed Pitts by the arm. He objected to the rough handling and asked if he was being arrested.

"We need to talk with you about this forged check that you brought in here," Pitts recalled deputy Bryan Wells saying. Later Wells explained the reason for the firm arm grab: "Well, Wal-Mart called us and reported to us that you committed a felony, and that's the way we approach felons," Pitts recalled.

Within 19 minutes deputies reviewed the evidence, determined there was no grounds for a criminal charge and learned Wal-Mart would not press the issue further. Wells handed the check to Pitts.





http://www.sptimes.com/2005/12/02/Tampabay/Racial_profiling_fear.shtml

[joeybee12]

1. Another reason not to shop at Wal-Mart!

[Scairp]

28. From yesterday

Or I would have started a new thread, but since it is more than 24 hrs. old, it would have been locked anyway.

TAMPA, Fla. --Wal-Mart apologized to a black man who was falsely accused of trying to pass a bad check when he went to buy thousands of dollars' worth of holiday gift cards for employees his manufacturing company.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/12/02/wal_mart_apologizes_to_corporate_shopper_for_bad_check_accusation/

[Flirtus]

2. Wal-Mart Judges Felon Status

Headline suggestion

[hippiechick]

3. I certainly hope Mr Pitts sues Wal Mart

... for falsely accusing him of presenting a forged check.

[AzDar]

4. My late father used to say.."You pay peanuts, you get monkeys"...

Couldn't be more appropriate in this situation. I hope Mr. Pitts sues, and sues hard.

[LostinVA]

6. The thing is, though, Wal-Mart doesn't pay it's manager peanuts

They pay very well. That's just another lawsuit against them: unqualified men are consistently promoted (or hired externally) into management over extremely better qualified and experienced women... they get the big bucks, and they're the ones who made this decision.

As I said in another thread, I managed a big box bookstore, and I never would have done this. I also said that I guarantee the store manager contacted his DM, or had been told previously by his DM to do this.

[Neocondriac]

5. And we wonder why O'Lielly hates the St. Pete Times!

[maddezmom]

7. kick

[wakeme2008]

8. Wal-Mart Accused Of Racism (Target in the end Wins :)

http://www.tampatrib.com/MGBK6Q0HRGE.html

Dec 3, 2005
Wal-Mart Accused Of Racism
By BAIRD HELGESONand MARY SHEDDEN
The Tampa Tribune


TAMPA -- Reginald Pitts wants more than an apology after managers of a Brandon Wal-Mart stalled him for two hours and called authorities on a bogus charge of passing a forged check from his company.

"I just want to know why. Why did this happen to me?" Pitts said Friday. "I'm mad. There's no possible excuse for this."

Pitts says Wal-Mart managers targeted him because he is black.

..cut..

Pitts, local human resources manager for GAF Materials Corp., called the Wal-Mart Supercenter at 11110 Causeway Blvd. in the morning to order 520 holiday gift cards for employees. The white, female worker who normally did the task was on vacation. The company had spent about $50,000 a year on gift cards at the local Wal-Mart for several years.

..cut..

Pitts' day might have been ruined, but his company did finally get the gift cards -- from Target.

[baldguy]

9. "The company had spent about $50,000 a year on gift cards..."

Racism & bigotry looses business. These are the values of the GOP.

[philosophie_en_rose]

10. Target is a better place anyway.

Not only is Target friendlier, GAF's staff will look better or feel better with higher quality stuff from Target.

[fudge stripe cookays]

12. No it's not.

Target is allowing its pharmacists to choose NOT to dispense birth control. JUST like Wal-Mart or Walgreen's.

They are no better. I haven't set foot in one since I found out. They're rightwing corporate assholes just like Wal-Mart.

fsc

[RaRa]

14. That IS really dissapointing. At least they can't do that here in Ilinois

[fudge stripe cookays]

15. Yes, and I wish I was there right now.

But what happens when Blagojevich's term is over? What if somehow that ruling is managed to be overturned somehow?

None of us are immune to this crap, no matter where we are. Some places are safer than others, but it's everywhere.

fsc

[zbdent]

16. Lesser of evils (when you don't have Costco) . . .

How many times have you heard of the REST of the stuff Wal-Mart pulls being done by Target?

(locking illegal immigrant workers in at night, bad benefits, paying such bad wages that the workers remain on public assistance, forcing suppliers to drop prices too low just to run them out of business and justify WM's use of slave-wage country labor, etc.?)

[fudge stripe cookays]

17. Point taken.

But here's a concept-- if you don't live in a piddly little place, buy from local spots instead of buying corporate. Especially if you can buy blue.

I live relatively close to Dallas, so I will try to buy whatever I can in smaller local spots.

[philosophie_en_rose]

18. Target may not be perfect, but it's superior to Walmart.

The company was going to shop at Walmart and used Target as an alternative. I simply commented that that was a better choice.

I don't use Target's pharmacy. I always use Costco, so I didn't have a clue about Target's choice to let its pharmacists choose. (I don't have a problem with it actually, as long as the pharmacist just quietly steps away and let's someone else handle it. No sermons or theatrics).

[fudge stripe cookays]

21. .

But most of these people DON'T just step away and let someone else handle it. They have to make a big production out of "THEIR BELIEFS."

They were hired to do a job, and by not filling these prescriptions, they're not doing it. God Forbid a woman who's just been raped come across any of these yahoos (as happened in Denton a few years ago). By not firing these people, Target condones these nutbars, and they are facilitating the dismantling of our rights.

We won't need the government to overturn Roe. If enough of these assholes get into the pharmacy business, and no woman in America will be able to protect herself from cicumstances like these.

I deplore anyone who doesn't have a problem with this.

[Arianrhod]

19. I agree.

Buy from non-corporations wherever and whenever possible.

It not only stops feeding the machine, but it begins feeding real people. :)

[SW FL Dem]

32. What if the local business owners are big Bush lovers

In my area, there are very few Dem owned business. Target may not be perfect, but I would much rather give my money to them than to a Bushbot. I spend as much as I can at Costco and other blue companies, but if I need something at Target, I will shop there.

[fudge stripe cookays]

33. That's a personal call we all have to make.

Most locally owned businesses break even, or maybe put a little dollars in someone's pocket. The owners may support Bush. Might even give him money, but not to the extent that the corporations do (in the thousands of dollars).

I'd rather spend locally for the most part than give to corporations, unless they are 100% true blue, like Costco. Target has shown with this latest move that they are not as blue as some seem to think they are.

And by many of the Progressive "Buy Blue" websites, they're not blue at all and never have been.

fsc

[yorkiemommie1]

20. right

me too. i never go to walmart and buy as little as possible from target. NEVER any prescriptions - have had a few spirited email exchanges w/ these folks re: bc pills.

Costco is nearby for me, luckily. Love that Costco!

edited for grammar.

[reprobate]

23. Walgreen's put those Illinois druggists on unpaid leave.

And they will stay that way until they decide to follow the law in Illinois and dispense legal drugs.

[Triana]

24. Those "pharmacists" need to get a different job...

...being a pharmacist and refusing to dispense ALL legally prescribed drugs is like being a construction worker and refusing to use a hammer. Stoooooooooopid.

Let them find another kind of job where they can keep their Taliban-like "morality" to themselves. Or, why don't they all become priests if the want to preach to others?

[reprobate]

27. Or being an airline pilot and refusing to use the landing gear. Dumb!

[fudge stripe cookays]

26. BUT in EVERY OTHER STATE

Walgreen's druggists are free to do whatever they WANT! This is not just an Illinois matter!

It's occurring all over, in states that do not have Illinois's protections in place, and the corporations themselves are responsible. Women who have no other recourse are being screwed by zealot pharmacists and the corporations who refuse to hold them accountable.

fsc

[HuffleClaw]

29. erm, is that legal?

surely not.

[fudge stripe cookays]

30. Do you read the news?

It's being done all over the country right now. Pharmacists are now saying it interferes with their beliefs to provide women with birth control (ESPECIALLY emergency contraception such as the "Day After Pill.")

Even if it isn't legal, all they have to do is find lawyers from "Right to Life" organizations to fight for them. Soemtimes, frighteningly enough, they win.

[kurth]

11. Wal-Mart fast becoming THE company Americans love to hate

For numerous good reasons.

[fudge stripe cookays]

13. Now if we can educate the ignorant about them....

the backlash could be Hugh1!

fsc

[Trillo]

22. Isn't this theft of personal and private property?

" But store managers, who had kept huddled in a nearby office during most of his two-hour ordeal, refused to return it." (emphasis added)

Wal-Mart yells "felon" while they STEAL Pitts check.

When the cops arrive, and determine there is no evidence, Wal-Mart returns the check? No evidence?

Why didn't the cops arrest Wal-Mart's managers for THEFT?

[AspenRose]

25. Attention lurking freeper redneck racist entrepreneurial types!

Racism will KILL your business. Repeat: Racism will KILL your business. So go ahead. Keep up the Bubba Good Ol' Boy way of doing things. You'll find yourself going out of business faster than you can whistle Dixie.

Good for Mr. Pitts for contacting the anti-Wal Mart Advocacy group.

"Pitts called at least two groups this week about the incident: the Hillsborough NAACP and an organization LEADING A NATIONAL CAMPAIGN against Wal-Mart.

"The best apology they can give is to stop it from happening," said Paul Blank, campaign director of Wake UpWalMart.com, an advocacy group."

[Judi Lynn]

31. Concerning the posted subject, I surely hope something will be done

to both punish the store, the employees involved, and properly apologize to the abused customer. From the article:

For about two hours, store managers stalled on accepting the check for the already-printed gift cards, while Pitts stood waiting by the customer service desk. He had handed over his GAF business card, his driver's license and the toll-free numbers to GAF's bank. His accounting supervisor assured them over the phone that GAF, the nation's biggest roofing systems maker with revenues of $1.6-billion in 2004, was good for the check.

Two African-American Wal-Mart clerks watching all this from nearby told Pitts that several similarly sized transactions were made for other companies that day without delay, Pitts said. They suggested to Pitts that he was subjected to all the extra scrutiny by their bosses because he is black.
(snip/...)

What happened to this man is unacceptable. I certainly hope the witnesses who came forward will not be threatened with job loss.

Other aspects of Walmart's profound indifference to people should be handled on seperate threads.

[LiberalFighter]

34. 4 WM officials have apologized but no one from store has...

Personally, if WM is serious about apology they should fire everyone involved in the racial profiling.

[Judi Lynn]

35. They should. Surely they're bright enough to realize normal people

don't approve of this behavior toward members of the community.

I'd like to see media publish the photos, FOR ONCE, of those involved in bullying customers who come, in good faith, to do business. Simply letting them terrorize, humiliate, condemn, disprespect people in front of complete strangers who don't know them and can't understand what is happening is a crime against their good names, a crime against them in spirit. It's a kind of dynamic slander, as a lot of the onlookers walk away without knowing what the issue is, and how it was settled. The event becomes permanent in their memories. Even when it's completely contrived, it's remembered as real, no doubt. It's like a trial is held in public. The customer loses.

The store employee has control of the customer's reputation. He/she can damage it beyond retrieval.

Getting physical with the man, grabbing him roughly, conducting his browbeating publically, instead of tactfully asking him to step into an office, where he can be spoken with, with dignity should get companies so much trouble they are forced to change their methods.

You shouldn't be at any psycho's mercy simply by chooosing to shop in his store. There should be standards of decent behavior they won't suspend just because they are the dregs of the earth and don't know how to communicate with people.

Since the stores wouldn't consider discouraging their employees from trashing customers, maybe public resisitance will eventually form to make enough noise when these things happen the stores will find it unprofitable.