JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Jacksonville family is suing Walmart because they say they were “racially profiled, wrongfully imprisoned and publicly humiliated.”
In the class action complaint filed this week, the couple said they were accused of stealing clothes at a Walmart on the northside.
The Brewster family said what started as just a normal trip to this city square Walmart to return some kids clothes quickly turned into a traumatic experience involving police.
“We were actually presumed guilty, and we didn’t do anything, there’s nothing we did wrong we didn’t take from Walmart,” said Raymond Brewster.
On Oct. 14, Raymond Brewster, his wife Nekeeya and their three young daughters came to city square Walmart to exchange some children’s clothes they brought the day before.
Raymond Brewster said while attempting to make the exchange at customer service … his family was approached by a store security officer, who accused them of “putting something in their bag.”
The couple quickly informed the officer they were not sure what he was talking about and immediately tried showing the officer their receipt to show the clothes they had were clothes they purchased the day prior, the lawsuit states.
According to the Brewster’s, the security officer refused to acknowledge the receipt. Brewster said a loss prevention officer then approached the family telling them they have them on camera. The family was then brought to the loss prevention office where they were met by two police officers, according to the lawsuit.
While in the office, the couple says store security was unable to find any video that showed them put anything in their bag, JSO officers told the family they were “free to go.”
"At the end of the day if the loss prevention guy would have listened to us none of this would be happening right now. He did not want to listen. We were immediately guilty of something we did not do,” said Brewster.
The family is now suing Walmart for being "racially profiled, wrongfully imprisoned, defamed and humiliated," according to their lawsuit.
Their attorney, Rory Diamond said this isn’t the first time black customers have been profiled while shopping in their stores. Diamond is also a Jacksonville City Councilman representing District 13.
"There’s cases literally hundreds of them across the country where Walmart has targeted black customers, security profiling them, calling the police when they done nothing wrong only because of the color of their skin and our expert will show that this is a systemic problem at Walmart. We want them to change the policy,” said Diamond.
“It’s embarrassing, Walmart has to do something different,” said Brewster.
Raymond Brewster did file an incident report with a JSO officer in this store parking lot, while his wife tried to get a public apology inside.
First Coast News reached out to Walmart regarding this lawsuit and was sent this statement:
“We take these allegations seriously and will respond accordingly once we are served with the complaint. “