Penny Thompson, a 42-year-old Black woman from Ohio, was looking forward to spending a month with her 15-year-old son after picking him up from his father’s house in North Carolina earlier this month.
She even stopped at a local Walmart in the Cleveland suburb of Mentor to purchase a 55-inch television set so her son could play video games while staying with her.
But then a random white woman came out of nowhere to accuse her son of stealing her wallet from her purse on the sole basis that “he looked guilty” without providing any evidence as to why he looked guilty.
Turns out, the missing wallet was inside her purse the entire time.
“This would never have happened if we had been white,” said Thompson in an exclusive interview with Atlanta Black Star.
“There were other white kids in the store, other boys his age and size, but they were not accused. Meanwhile, the wallet was in her purse the entire time inside the truck.”
Thompson, in fact, said they had been racially profiled from the moment they walked into the store because the manager insisted she provide identification to see if it matched the debit card she was using to buy the television set, while other white customers making large purchases were not asked to produce identification.
“We were racially profiled from the time we walked in the store to the time we walked out of the store and into the parking lot,” Thompson said.
‘You Know He’s Guilty’
The incident took place on July 6, resulting in a viral TikTok video her son had recorded, showing the white woman accusing Thompson of playing “the race card” when it was clear she was racially profiling her son with false accusations.
Thompson said she was already annoyed at having to show her identification and not receiving any help from employees to load the television into her car after driving eight hours from North Carolina.
Then, while loading the items she purchased into the trunk of her car, a blue pickup truck driven by the white woman’s husband pulled up behind her car, blocking her in.
“When this blue truck pulls up, I’m like, wait a minute, are they going to try to rob us?” she said.
The white woman — whom Thompson had never seen before — then stepped out to accuse her son of stealing the wallet.
“I tell them they better call the police immediately,” Thompson said. “I then tell my son to get the manager inside the Walmart.”
Once back outside with a manager and an employee, her son began recording the interaction, showing the white woman accusing Thompson of pulling the race card.
“I don’t care what color you are,” she said. “He looked guilty.”
“Guilty of what?” Thompson asked.
“You can act like it’s because you’re Black, but it’s not,” the white woman insisted. “You know he’s guilty.”
But it was the white woman guilty of making false accusations.
At one point, the white woman removes her glasses and tells her husband that she is waiting for Thompson to hit her.
“Ain’t nobody touching you,” responded Thompson. “Go home.”
“I’m waiting,” the white woman said. “Go ahead.”
Thompson said she told the woman she was “going to beat that ass” before her son started recording, but said she was only speaking in anger and had no intention of hitting her.
“She was trying to provoke me to hit her,” she said. “And I’m like, wait a minute, I’m not going to get scabies or whatever from touching this lady or whatever she got going on.”
The two-and-a-half-minute video ends before the cops arrive, but Thompson said they arrived within minutes and kept them there for 20 minutes as they tried to figure out what was happening.
The cops then allowed them to leave, telling Thompson they would be in touch if they found any evidence that her son had taken the wallet.
She said the cops reviewed video footage from inside the store, but eventually, cops wrote in their report that the wallet was found in the woman’s purse.
Thompson said she is unsure if she will pursue legal action against the woman because she believes she may be mentally ill and probably does not have a lot of money anyway.
“This woman has nothing. What is she going to be able to do for me?” she said.
“I guess it’s more against Walmart and protecting their customers. Come on now, I spent more money than anybody that day.”
Earlier this year, a Black woman from California was falsely accused of stealing a woman’s ring from a pilates gym before the woman found the ring inside her home.
Great Job Carlos Miller & the Team @ Atlanta Black Star Source link for sharing this story.
