factor. Uncensored Welcome. And thank you for hanging around for the second half hour. The factor on censored. We have much more coming your way, so don't go anywhere now. Unfortunately this is a shared experience among many black people out there. That feeling of extra eyes on you when walking into a store and an employee could be watching or even following you, waiting on you to steal in their minds, when that's not what the customers intention at all is. Now the general manager of an NBA team is one of the latest victims of this kind of racial profiling, which is also simply known as shopping while black. And it happened at the Saks Fifth Avenue in Miami. And joining me now here on The Factor Uncensored, we have with us Greg Dupree with Tlac now a security expert. So, Greg, Saks Fifth Avenue has apologized to Wizards general manager Will Dawkins for arresting him, or at least accusing him of being a shoplifter at this store. This was back in November of 2023. What do we know about this case, Greg? Well, evidently they the security in the store was observing a shoplifter. A potential shoplifter, and they got in contact. There was a police officer from Miami PD that was working in the store with him, and they went out and they accosted Mr. Dawkins, believing that he was a suspect, that they had observed. I, you know, they didn't give any information as to whether or not they were similarly dressed. All we know is that both of them were black, so I don't know how or why they made this case of mistaken identity. And God forbid, they say they all look alike. Exactly, exactly. That's hard. Yeah. You know, I'd love to see the surveillance tape and compared it to. Right. Yeah, yeah. But you know, you take a look at it and it is possible, but without additional information, the video surveillance, we don't know how they confused him with the suspect. The issue in this matter is the fact that they they they accosted him. And after it was said and done, it was made clear that he wasn't the suspect. They the police officer and the security guard just blew it off like it was no big deal, right? You know, thankfully, Saks issued an apology and handled it probably as best they could in this type of situation. This is a evidently, you know, obviously, this is an ongoing problem, not just a Saks and other stores and other malls and such. But the thing is, Saks did handle it well, but it goes beyond just being the Saks problem. It's a problem for whoever the security guard was who was terminated. But that doesn't mean he can't go work for another security company and do the same thing again. And it also makes you wonder, has he done this before with less of a high profile individual? Because, you know, I've seen and heard obviously the term shopping while black where right many times you're followed through a store, many times they're monitoring you when you are there as a legitimate customer. Obviously there are a lot of problems with shoplifting in this day and age where we see many people bumrush various stores and run out with the stuff, but this guy would not fit that profile, not at all, not at all. And he was just browsing in the store. It seemed like he was not making any type of moves that he was trying to conceal. Any of that merchandise. It was just bad judgment and bad action on part of the police officer and that security guard. Now, when we take a look at this case, you said Saks Fifth Avenue handled this properly. Obviously, it took time to investigate, but many people are saying this happened in November of 2023. And the apology was issued this week. Why did it take so long? Well, we don't know the inner workings. I didn't say they handle it properly. I said they handled it the best they could in light of the circumstances. Okay, the thing is that we don't know what the inner workings were. We don't know if Mr. Dawkins had been in some type of negotiation, which he obviously had, because the donations they made were and to his credit, were directed to various organizations to help the underprivileged. And that, you know, I applaud him for doing such. But we don't know if they there had been some type of initial litigation and they came to some type of agreement to avoid any type of, more negative publicity because this, you know, this happened last year. I'm curious, I asked you, Isaiah, had you heard of this incident before? Before now I have not I have not until this apology came out publicly that was the first time I heard of it. Exactly. So that means not just Saks Fifth Avenue, but Mr. Dawkins had plenty of time to bring this to public's attention. Now, I'm not saying that he didn't, but this is the first we're hearing it, especially on a national level. So they could have been in some type of negotiation. They could have told him up front following the incident that we're going to work on this and make this right. Let's sit down together and come to some agreeable solution for both of us. And that's why we never heard anything about it. And I want to talk to you, Greg, about those who may experience something like this. If they're in a store and they're shopping and they find themselves being followed by law enforcement, private security in that store, what is the best way to handle that? In order to make sure you don't get into trouble. But you don't want to be accused of theft, do you? Just let it play out? Do you confront them? What? Well, it's sad that first of all, we can't go. Well, I say we our community can't go and shop in various stores and various locations without being singled out and targeted as potential theft suspect. But what you should do in this type of case. Now, remember, there's nothing illegal about somebody working for the store following you around. It's when they make contact with you. When you've done nothing wrong that the problems begin. Now one of the things you want to keep in mind if they make contact and make false accusations, don't try to win the battle in the store because you're not going to win. All you're going to do is escalate the situation and open up yourself to potential jail time. Because if the police respond that they're going to say that, you know, you were causing a disturbance to the store and guess who could more than likely is going to end up going to jail. You have to be thinking about, I want to keep this. I want to let them know what they did was wrong and also let them know you're going to be taking further action outside of that store. And by further action, I mean in litigation in the courtroom. Don't think about winning on the streets. Think about winning in the courtroom, particularly if they don't rectify the situation and make things right with you in the store right then. But for you to see someone following you around, store security and then you start a confrontation, as I said, unless they make some type of contact or make some
