Dollar General, the popular discount variety store, was hit with a lawsuit from two Black women who claimed they were racially discriminated against while shopping at a South Charleston, West Virginia, location.
The customers, identified as Alexandria Shoffner and Kitrena Mitchell, filed separate complaints concerning their experience at the store last August, the West Virginia Record reported. The store’s manager, Joyce Roberts, and Dolgencorp, a store subsidiary, are defendants.
The women are seeking damages and claimed Roberts, who is white, targeted them due to their race, per the outlet. The duo alleged that when they entered the store, Roberts appeared to be “shocked” because they were the only people of color in the establishment, according to the report citing court records.
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After deciding not to purchase anything, they started to walk out of the store, and the anti-theft detector, which can be manually set off by staff, started ringing, the outlet reported. Shoffner and Mitchell then decided to go back into the store and opened their purses to straighten out the misunderstanding.
In response, Roberts allegedly told them that “if yall beeped, that means you took something” and proceeded to call the police in front of other shoppers, per the West Virginia Record. They accused the manager of describing them as “all Black.”
The outlet reported that the women waited until local police got to the scene. Upon arrival, Roberts claimed they stole from the store, which prompted the officer to search their bags. He also made them go through the detectors again to ensure it didn’t go off.
In addition, the officer requested their identification because the manager wanted to bar them from all locations. According to the report, the plaintiffs said that the incident caused them emotional distress and humiliation.
In 2019, Dollar General had to pay a $6 million settlement following a discrimination lawsuit that said the retail chain didn’t hire Black people at “a significantly higher rate than white applicants'” for failing their background screening, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said in a press release.
