A pair of California sisters is calling on grocery store chain “Safeway” to “do better” after they accused a security guard of harassing them while they were checking out.
In a video posted by @atribecalledjaye, she and her sister were at a self-checkout kiosk when the security guard approached on Wednesday.
“You’re standing here watching me scan my groceries, telling me I forgot to scan my apple juice, and you clearly see we’re still scanning groceries, so mind your f—king business,” one of the sisters said to the security guard.
“Are you OK?” the security guard asked.
“ARE YOU OK?” a sister answered.
According to the video’s caption, the sisters went to a store in American Canyon, California, in the Bay Area.
The caption claims the women were actively scanning and bagging their items when the security guard, who they said is named “Anna,” started hovering over them.
“Why are you watching us?” one of the sisters asked.
They claim the security guard accused them of stealing chicken wings.
You can hear the sisters yell at the guard in the video, calling her “passive-aggressive.”
“I could show you aggressive, girl, we could do that right here,” one sister challenged.
In the video, you can see another employee separate the women from the security guard as she makes a phone call.
The store where this took place is one of the few in the Bay Area that still have self-checkout registers.
“Operational changes have been made at select stores throughout the Bay Area given the increasing amount of theft,” Safeway said in a statement to KTVU. “Self-checkout kiosks have been removed at a few stores. Like other local businesses, we are working on ways to curtail escalating theft so we can ensure the well-being of our employees and foster a welcoming environment for our customers.”
It’s unclear if the security guard’s approach was related to the recent corporate changes.
“We were upset. We felt targeted and harassed, and we gave her the same energy she was giving us,” @atribecalledjaye wrote online. “We called out what it was: profiling and racism. So no, we weren’t soft-spoken in that moment. We were standing up for ourselves.”
In a third Instagram video, you can see the security guard follow the sisters out of the store as a third person tries to intervene.
“Leave ’em alone!” the other woman yelled at the guard. “Now I’m getting f—king pissed.”
The women claim no Safeway employees intervened.
“The only people who had our backs were other Black customers; an older man and a young woman, and even other shoppers said she has a history of doing this to people,” one sister said.
The sisters said they left the store, not because they were wrong, but because there would be real-life consequences if the situation escalated any further.
“I’m on probation for another month, and I refused to let a situation SHE escalated cost me anything. So I removed myself,” one said.
Atlanta Black Star reached out to the sisters and Safeway, but has not heard back.
