When Sherell Bates, a pregnant mother from North Carolina, left the house to purchase school supplies for her older children, she had no idea she’d be faced with an accusation that would leave her mouth agape.
Sherell, pregnant with twins, headed to the Staples store in Pineville to pick up the traditional list of school gear— papers, pencils, binders— to prepare her kids for their upcoming classes.
But when she got to the cash register she was surprised to see a police officer approach her.
In an interview with WSOC, she said: ” Mid-transaction, a police officer approached me and insisted he wanted to speak with me.”
“He asked what was under my shirt.”
As you can imagine, the pregnant mother initially thought the officer was joking. “My response was ‘twins’,” she said. “‘I’m 34 weeks with twins. I’m having a boy and a girl.'”
But, when Sherell told the officer she was pregnant with twins, he didn’t seem to believe her. So, she nonchalantly raised her shirt, so he could see her bulbous belly underneath.
“At that point, to avoid him asking me again, I actually lifted my shirt just a little bit, just to expose my belly, so he could see that I’m just a regular pregnant person buying school supplies. “
Turns out the store manager thought Sherell was stealing and hiding items in her clothing. She had requested the officer to question the mother.
In the interview with WSOC, Sherell said: “When I confronted her about what happened, she admitted that, ‘In the past, we’ve had a lot of people putting school supplies or merchandise in their clothes and hiding, so I asked the officer to reach out to you.”
“You pretty much jumped the gun without any type of evidence, except my stomach is large.”
“That’s not fair. No mom should have to go through that.”
Since the incident was publicized, Staples released a statement, saying:
“Staples has since conducted a full investigation into the matter and determined that the manager in question did not follow correct protocol and also failed to adhere to our existing policy on how to interact with our customers.”
“As a result of this finding, the manager has been terminated and Staples has apologized to the customer.”
“At Staples, we want all customers to feel welcome in our stores, and work with our associates to foster an inclusive culture.”
“As an organization, we would like to apologize to the customer as that was not the case in this instance.”
Despite the store’s claims, however, Sherell said she only learned the manager was fired via the news and has not received an apology. “I actually saw it on social media. It wasn’t directly to me. I didn’t have any direct communication with Staples,” she said.
People are infuriated for the pregnant mother. Comments on the video read:
“If those beepers at the doors don’t go off then this is waaay out of line!! Lawsuit!!”
“We can add something to the list of things black people can’t do: be pregnant”
“Wait…the accused the woman of stealing when she was already in line buying a bunch of stuff 🤔 Sue sis!”
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