What started as a simple trip to Walmart ended with a Black woman and her 15-year-old son being accused of theft. But shockingly, employees at the store weren’t the ones who took issue with the Black family. Instead, it was a white woman who followed and harassed the teenager for an unbelievable reason.
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Penny Thompson, 42, said she was already frustrated that no Walmart employees offered to help her load a newly purchased 55-inch television into her car. Not to mention, out of all the white people making large purchases at the store, she was the only one who was forced to show identification in the Cleveland establishment on July 3.
But it’s when she and her son walked to their car and began unloading their purchased items into the vehicle that they were approached by an angry Karen and her husband. He was driving a blue pickup truck which pulled up behind Thompson and blocked her car in.
“When this blue truck pulls up, I’m like, wait a minute, are they going to try to rob us?” she told Atlanta Black Star. That’s when the mother claimed the white lady got out of the truck and began accusing the teenage boy of stealing her wallet.
“I tell them they better call the police immediately,” Thompson continued. “I then tell my son to get the manager inside the Walmart.”
Eventually, her son returned with the manager and started filming the verbal altercation.
“Check the cameras and tell this lady that my son hasn’t taken anything away from her. Is she high or something?” Thompson can be heard asking the Walmart employee in the video, “What is the problem?!”
The unidentified white woman then tells her husband that Thompson is “pulling the race card.” That’s when Thompson responds, “Yeah, I’m pulling the race card.”
“I don’t care what color you are,” the white woman says. “You look guilty. You can act like it’s because you’re Black, but it’s not…you know he’s guilty.” After some more back and forth between the two women — while the Walmart manager stands in silence — the white woman takes off her glasses and tells her husband she’s waiting for Thompson to hit her.
“She was trying to provoke me to hit her,” Thompson told Black Star. “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 video cuts out after the son, who was clearly frustrated, began shouting that the woman was “rage baiting.” After that, Thompson said the police were called and eventually arrived to the scene.
Twenty minutes passed until Thompson and her son were allowed to leave the store. Police later called the mother to clear her and her son of any wrongdoing. They said after reviewing camera footage, they determined the woman’s wallet was not stolen. In fact, she left it in her own purse in the husband’s truck.
The video clip posted to TikTok now has over 271,000 views. Many online suggested Thompson sue the white woman, but she told Atlanta Black Star she’s not sure yet. For her, it’s not about the woman anyway.
“It’s more against Walmart and protecting their customers,” Thompson said. “Come on now, I spent more money than anybody that day.”
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