BRATTLEBORO — A disturbing incident that took place at the Hannaford Supermarket in Brattleboro was brought to our attention at our most recent meeting: On Oct. 19, Christopher Bridges, a graduate student at the SIT Graduate Institute at World Learning, was falsely accused of stealing a case of beer by a store employee.
Accompanying Mr. Bridges were Nicole Maier and Victoria Castro, both SIT graduate students. Ms. Castro had, in fact, paid for the case of beer Mr. Bridges carried out of the store. Ms. Castro, who had paid for the beer with her debit card, declined the offer of a receipt by the cashier.
The initial call to the police related to an incident from the night before. As background, the day before (Oct. 18), the Hannaford staff reported a customer who might have used a stolen credit card in the store.
A small group of Hannaford's employees watched Mr. Bridges, Mrs. Maier, and Ms. Castro enter the SIT van, where they waited for other students to complete their purchases.
The employees wrote down the van's license plate number. The store's loss-prevention officer thought another student in the SIT van resembled the suspect, but later on realized he was mistaken.
Once that mistake was clarified, however, Hannaford did not drop the call for police support and accused Mr. Bridges of stealing the case of beer, in what appears to be an act of racial profiling, since Mr. Bridges is an African-American.
The Brattleboro Police Department responded by sending one officer to the store while other officers attempted to locate the vehicle with the plate information.
Once found in the vicinity of SIT and confronted by officers that he had stolen a case of beer, Mr. Bridges and Ms. Castro offered to voluntarily return to the store to prove their innocence.
Two police cars, one in front and the other in back, escorted the van of students Ms. Castro was driving back to the store. Mr. Bridges and Ms. Castro then endured the public embarrassment of being escorted back into the store by an armed and uniformed police officer.
Upon seeing Mr. Bridges and Ms. Castro, the cashier immediately verified that Ms. Castro had paid for the beer.
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While, sadly, we know that similar events have happened in other local businesses, we feel a sense of urgency to reflect on the ramifications of Hannaford employees' actions and to consider ways to avoid such behavior in the future.
At our group's Nov. 4 meeting, Brattleboro Police Chief Eugene Wrinn expressed concern that the police had been called without any evidence that the beer had been stolen. Limited town resources were wasted.
And because the incident involved racial profiling, the town of Brattleboro was at risk of a civil lawsuit. Fortunately, the police department responded immediately to the students' request for a meeting to determine the circumstances surrounding the misidentification of Mr. Bridges as a shoplifter by the store's employees. The students had a timely, productive exchange with the officers involved and Chief Wrinn.
Mr. Bridges and Ms. Castro also requested to meet with the store manager and Hannaford corporate representatives without initial success. For two weeks, Hannaford employees delayed meetings for reasons unknown. When finally the meeting took place, Mr. Bridges and Ms. Castro felt Hannaford employees made excuses and minimized the seriousness of the false accusation and humiliating escort into the store by an armed, uniformed officer. This marginalizing behavior by employees led them to believe their concerns were not of interest to Hannaford management.
We believe they deserve a public apology for the false accusation and overall unprofessional manner in which Hannaford employees acted. We also believe the town of Brattleboro deserves an apology for the unnecessary use of police services as well as reimbursement for the police department's time investigating a false police report.
The inability of Hannaford management to respond in a timely fashion and realize the impact of their Brattleboro employees' behavior means that the greater Brattleboro community is now becoming involved.
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The incident and inadequate response from Hannaford's Brattleboro store has proven to be the tipping point with Mr. Bridges and Ms. Castro, their fellow students at SIT, and now with the community at large. More than 70 students have been meeting to determine how to respond to the hostile environment - whether intentional or not - that students of color experience while they shop at Hannaford. As a starting point, many of those students are filing complaints on the Hannaford corporate website.
These forums have also led many SIT students and staff to privately decide not to shop at Hannaford. The college's staff, students, and food service annually spend approximately $1.6 million at the Brattleboro store alone.
Students and community members are considering a call to action for a public boycott of Hannaford, not only in Brattleboro but across the supermarket chain's 17 Vermont stores, which serve an increasingly diverse customer base.
A well-planned and executed boycott could shift upwards of $25 million annually from Hannaford to more responsive grocers, as well as tarnish the brand in an increasingly multicultural marketplace.
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Our group strives to deepen the connections among cultural diversity, innovation, and a thriving prosperous community. We urge Hannaford to take this critical incident as an opportunity to change direction in a way that could be a model for other local businesses. Too often, these events occur at the expense of people of color in our growing communities.
What can Hannaford management do to keep this misstep from happening again? Does its employee education program includes the development of cultural competence? How comfortable does its staff feel with people of different cultural/racial/ethnic backgrounds? How can every Hannaford staff person make it a priority to welcome all customers from all backgrounds to their stores?
The members of the Community Equity Collaborative can assist Hannaford corporate leadership in identifying skilled trainers in the fields of customer service bias and cultural competence.
In addition to the public apology Mr. Bridges and Ms. Castro deserve, Hannaford must show decisive action in the form of focused employee professional development to address the inadequate response by its Brattleboro staff.
If Hannaford's management involves the company directly in addressing these issues in a timely manner, it will send a powerful message to their managers and employees in Brattleboro as well as the community at large.