Cops called on black customer at CVS

Couponing while black? Add it to the list. A Chicago woman tried to use a coupon at a CVS in the city’s Edgewater neighborhood when a store employee told her the slip was fake and another worker called the police. The incident stands as the latest known example of racial profiling in commercial spaces, captured in a viral cellphone video. After a CVS investigation, the employees are no longer with the company.

Camilla Hudson, 53, didn’t hope for much beyond convenience when she made her late-night run Friday into CVS. Coupon in hand, she wanted to use the slip — which had been mailed to her by a product manufacturer — so she could replace a defective item.

Ms. Hudson hadn’t had any issues talking to one employee, who later identified himself as Morry Matson, while she stood in the self-checkout aisle. But then she was approached by another employee who said he’d never seen the coupon before and insisted itwas fraudulent.

Ms. Hudson, who is black, told The Washington Post that she didn’t take issue with the fact that the store wouldn’t accept the coupon.

What will leave a lasting impression was how shewas treated.

“He talked to me like I was a rabid dog,” Ms. Hudson said of the second employee. “He was not professional. He was not courteous. From the very firstwords, he was contentious, and he was accusatory in his tone.”

Ms. Hudson took out her phone to start filming, and the second employee turned his back and walked away. He ran to the back of the store and slammed a door between himself and Ms. Hudson. That’s when Mr. Matson, who just minutes before had been helping Ms. Hudson check out, told Ms. Hudson that she would be better off leaving because hehad called the police.

Ms. Hudson told him that she would to talk to the police. Mr. Matson then called 911 again around 11:30 p.m. Friday as Ms. Hudson started filming.

In the video, Mr. Matson is visibly shaking. He describes Ms. Hudson and her clothing to the dispatcher.

“Tell them that I will be waiting for them to arrive,” Ms. Hudson says. “You can tell them her name is Camilla Hudson. I have ID and will share it.”

Mr. Matson, who is white, then spells his own name for the dispatcher and describes Ms. Hudson as African American. Ms. Hudson corrects Mr. Matson and says she’s “black.”

“Black isn’t a bad word,” she says in the video.