Bed, Bath & Beyond is catching heat after staff at an Ohio store allegedly called the police on Black shoppers who were deemed to have too many high ticket items in their cart.
In a video posted on Twitter, a Black couple claim they were racially profiled at the Toledo outlet and accused of shoplifting when employees noticed they had selected expensive products.
“We had no idea the police were there because they were called for us,” Richards tweeted. “I have a Johns Hopkins T-shirt and my boyfriend has on a Michigan College of Pharmacy T-shirt. We literally just wanted to buy some stuff for our new house and THIS is the welcome we get to the area,” he added.
The video was shared by prominent civil rights advocate Ben Crump, who wrote the couple “deserves answers for this humiliating experience.”
Bed, Bath & Beyond gave a statement to Newsweek, “At Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., we take matters of this nature very seriously and do not tolerate discrimination of any kind.”
They added, “We are deeply concerned about the reported incident and are actively looking into the matter, as we do with any incidents described that are inconsistent with our policies and procedures.”
We were not given a way to contact corporate or the district manager. The police only said “you all did nothing wrong” pic.twitter.com/6nLnLi0VNS
— Lamar Richards (@lamarrichards_) June 16, 2023
