Two black shoppers say they were racially profiled, one has filed a lawsuit
By Deepti Hajela
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — A civil rights group said Thursday it was seeking a meeting with the CEO of Barneys New York in the wake of racial profiling claims by two shoppers at the high-end department store.
The Brooklyn chapter of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network said the group also plans to picket Barneys if the alleged pattern of racial profiling does not stop, its president, Kirsten John Foy, said in a statement.
Two black shoppers this week accused Barneys of detaining them after they made expensive purchases at the store in Manhattan. One of them has filed a discrimination lawsuit against Barneys, the city and its police department.
“Barneys New York has zero tolerance for any form of discrimination and we stand by our long history in support of all human rights,” the luxury retailer said in a statement.
NAN said it plans other action against the New York Police Department for what it called “continued use of the discriminatory pattern and practice against people of color.”
Trayon Christian, 19, of Queens, filed a lawsuit Monday over an incident in which he said he was wrongfully detained after making an expensive purchase because he is a young black man.
According to the lawsuit, Christian went to Barneys on April 29 and purchased a $350 Ferragamo belt. After leaving, he was accosted by undercover NYPD officers, who said someone at the store had raised concerns over the sale, he said. The lawsuit said he showed the receipt from the purchase, the debit card he used to make it and identification to the officers, but he was told the identification was false and “that he could not afford to make such an expensive purchase.”
The lawsuit said he was held at a precinct in a cell for more than two hours before being released with no charges filed against him. It said the incident was due to “discrimination based on plaintiff’s race and age as he was a young black American male.”
In a statement, Barneys denied that it was involved in any detention, saying “that after carefully reviewing the incident of last April, it is clear that no employee of Barneys New York was involved in the pursuit of any action with the individual other than the sale.”
