A Georgia business owner says the mother of a terminated employee confronted her at the establishment with a gun at her side in order to intimidate her.
Video of the confrontation, posted on the shop’s social media pages, shows the angry mother inching slowly behind the counter at FRIO Rolled Ice Cream shop in Covington, Georgia, demanding that Alicia Sanders sign a work-study form before going off in a tirade.
The now-viral confrontation has led to the woman, dubbed a “Karen” by Sanders, being fired from her place of employment.
The business owner tries to reassure the mother, identified in the caption as Debra Johnson, that it will be completed in the video published on April 6.
“We always do it,” Sanders says.
“I don’t trust you,” Johnson snaps back. “You can’t even face my daughter and fire her in person. You couldn’t even face her. You didn’t have the balls to face her and tell her you were firing her ’cause you were chickensh—t.”
Sanders said she fired Johnson’s daughter three days before the confrontation “after receiving quite a few disrespectful text messages where I now believe to be from her mother.”
“She stated that the position was overwhelming, and I advised through email that this position does not seem to be a good fit any longer,” Sanders wrote.
Johnson and Sanders then argue back and forth about the girl’s schedule after Johnson accuses her of assigning the teenager to work on a day she usually has off. The angry mother then calls Sanders a “passive-aggressive b—ch” and a “bully” before one of her daughters pulls her away.
Sanders responded by calling authorities and later filed a protective order and police report. She claimed Johnson was armed and kept groping the weapon that was “on her side.”
The shop owner also shared a video from March 30 that showed Johnson, the children’s father, and two friends who were armed on the property. She alleges that Johnson showed her a bullet from a gun she had recently purchased and said she believed it was all to intimidate the Black business owner.
“Debra explained to me last Saturday that she went and purchased a 22 handgun and that she had been shooting all evening. I felt that she was intimidating me and I did feel very threatened and afraid but my husband calmed me concerns,” Sanders wrote.
However, Atlanta Black Star was not able to confirm whether Johnson was holding a bullet In March or was armed when she confronted Sanders in April.
This month, Sanders said Johnson sent her a cease-and-desist letter because of the videos and claimed in a police report that the business owner “incited harassment” from viewers, exposed her daughter’s license plate and accused her of cyberbullying and making a false police report, among other allegations.
“She’s upset now because everybody now knows her for who she is,” Sanders said in a May 8 video.
However, after a court hearing on Thursday, a judge concluded that there was not enough evidence to charge Johnson with trespassing and disorderly conduct related to the April confrontation, according to Sanders, who admitted that she believed the outcome may have been different if she had hired an attorney. The judge also dismissed the cyberbullying allegations that Johnson made against the shop owner, she said.
“I am upset about the outcome because I feel like this is another step back in the pursuit of justice and it doesn’t send a lesson to the children that were present or the mother about consequences or the actions towards others.”
