A video on Reddit shows a ‘Walgreens Karen’ getting a Black man kicked out of the store in California after she accused him of shoplifting next door. However, the man ended up solving his own shoplifting case.
The video starts with a man in a Walgreens being confronted by two West Covina police officers saying he’s being put out of the store for being suspicious.
“I’m just buying my stuff, and I’m being kicked out for shopping,” he says, briefly showing a cart of hair product. “They say that I was stealing next door; that I fit the description.”
He notes that he’s wearing a black jacket and has a high-top fade.
The man, who says he’s veteran, is told that neither the Walgreens nor Vons, the grocery next store, want him on around the premises.
The manager says she had a customer witness him shoplifting at Vons, so she called the police. He’s predictably stunned at how he could be removed from one place because of an event at another store.
“This is the shit that happens every day,” he says to the manager and the cops. “This is bullshit.”
The manager then claims a Vons employee witnessed a theft, which prompted the police response. He asks her what she said the culprit was wearing, and he mentions what he has on: black jacket, red hat.
With that information, he asks the officers to follow him to Vons, where he quickly finds the woman who called attention to the alleged shoplifter.
After a jump cut into Vons, he’s talking to that manager. He describes his situation; however, she details another person wearing a completely different outfit.
“That’s not him,” she tells police. “The one that stole from us had a red T-shirt, camouflage black, and gray pants. And he had a pony-tail.”
The “Walgreens Karen” had the wrong details from a customer, yet that was all she needed to call the police on him. It’s a situation that occurs to Black men all over the country, sometimes with terrible consequences.
He winds up briefly confronting her for falsely accusing him of a crime, and perhaps putting his life in danger.
There’s no apology, no resolution whatsoever for the man. As usual, he’s expected to accept the racism.
As u/workingclassnobdy commented: “She is sorry but not for being wrong. She’s sorry that poor guy wasn’t just jailed anyway. And sorry she got caught lying.”
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