Walmart must pay Black man $4.4 million in racial profiling ruling

A Black man in Oregon has been awarded a $4.4 million settlement after a jury decided he had been racially profiled while shopping at Walmart.

Michael Mangum filed a lawsuit last year against the retail giant and one of its employees, alleging that in March of 2020 he was followed around a store in Wood Village, Oregon, by a security worker and then asked to leave once he confronted the employee. Mangum had gone to the store to buy a light bulb for his refrigerator, according to the complaint. 

Court documents also allege that the security worker, Joe Williams, threatened to call the police if Mangum did not leave the premises. Mangum, who works for a housing project in Portland and as a counselor for at-risk youth, refused to leave.

"His jobs would have been at great risk had he been charged with a crime, but he refused to be intimidated by Williams' lies and bullying," Mangum's attorney, Gregory Kafoury of Portland, Oregon, said in a statement on Monday. 

Williams no longer works for Walmart, company spokesman Randy Hargrove told CBS MoneyWatch but didn't elaborate on why. Hargrove called the $4.4 million award "excessive" and said Williams was not following Mangum.

"Mr. Mangum was never stopped by Walmart's Asset Protection," Hargrove said. "He interfered with our associates as they were surveilling and then stopped confirmed shoplifters, and then refused to leave despite being asked to repeatedly by our staff and Multnomah County deputies."

Shopping while Black

Known in the Black community as "Shopping While Black," retail racism occurs when a store employee assumes a person of color may shoplift and then trails or harasses the shopper. 

Walmart has found itself at the center of several such cases, most of which are still ongoing. 

Two Black men in Texas sued the retailer for racial discrimination in 2021, alleging that they were accused of theft and handcuffed by police after trying to return a television set. A Black man who works as a corrections officer in Georgia filed a lawsuit this year against Walmart after being handcuffed and falsely accused of shoplifting, the Washington Post reported. 

CVS, Macy's and other major retailers have also been sued for allegedly racially profiling Black customers. A 2021 survey conducted by DealAid of more than 1,000 Black consumers found that 90% of respondents have experienced racial profiling while shopping.