By Taylor MacPherson

More customers allege racial profiling at P.A. Sears

Sep 29, 2017 | 5:00 PM

More residents are coming forward claiming they were racially profiled at the Prince Albert Sears location after a First Nations woman accused an employee of racially profiling her and making racist comments while ejecting her from the store.

Danika McLeod, a 28-year-old social work student, said she was followed around the store in the spring by a woman in street clothing whom she believed to be an employee. McLeod, a Cree woman, said she believes she was followed only because of her race.

McLeod said she popped into the Sears location in Gateway Mall hoping to buy a purse while on a break from her job at a nearby jewelry store. While she shopped, McLeod said she heard a strange announcement over the store intercom and noticed a woman tailing her through the store immediately afterward.

“I heard something about ‘security camera six’ or something like that,” McLeod told paNOW. “At first I didn’t think anything of it until I noticed she was following me around.”

McLeod said the woman following her was wearing a hoodie and sweats, but stuck close behind her doggedly throughout her time in the store. She eventually asked a cashier whether the woman following her was a Sears employee, McLeod said, though the cashier did not provide an answer.

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“I ended up going back to work and I started crying. It didn’t feel right,” McLeod said. “I felt angry. I was embarrassed and I felt ashamed of myself even though I hadn’t done anything wrong.”

Although she was a regular Sears customer before the incident and purchased all her makeup from their Clinique counter, McLeod said she now prefers to do her shopping elsewhere.

Despite not being able to confirm if the woman who followed her was a store employee, McLeod said the awful feeling stayed with her for a long time after the incident.

“Maybe I was being paranoid, but I’d never felt like that before,” she said.

McLeod said she wasn’t surprised to read B. Helen Ermine’s allegations about her treatment at the same location. Racial profiling, McLeod said, is a systemic issue Indigenous people experience far too often.

“This stuff happens on a daily basis, and I think it’s easy for non-Indigenous people to just not think about it because it doesn’t happen to them,” she said. “You just can’t treat people like that.”

McLeod is not the only other person to claim they received similar treatment from Sears; several others have shared their stories through paNOW’s social media accounts.

“Last week while shopping with my family at Sears, we were literally being followed by one of their employee[s],” Angelina Monyrew wrote on Facebook. “Everywhere we were she was there too, and that made me very uncomfortable.”

Others took a more proactive approach when they felt they had been racially profiled:

“[A loss-prevention officer] followed my wife and I around,” Facebook user Vernon Kakakaway wrote. “I knew he was a floor walker. So I made him earn his money. I walked around the whole store.”

In an email to paNOW earlier this week, Sears Canada spokesperson Vincent Power said the company “does not tolerate discrimination in any form,” and added “research will show that such behaviour is not part of our corporate culture.” paNOW has reached out to Sears Canada to address McLeod’s allegations directly, and will update this story with their response.

The Prince Albert Sears location is currently liquidating inventory and will close their doors permamently next week.

Taylor.Macpherson@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @TMacPhersonNews