In Spring, Texas, a woman ran into her local Kroger grocery store to grab a few things and get on with her list of other errands to run. However, things didn’t go as simply as she had hoped when she was refused service because she disgusted a particular employee who took one look at the shopper and said that she was sick of people like her.
Meredith, who didn’t feel comfortable releasing her last name, had checked everything off of her shopping list and headed to the register at the front of the store. As she put her items on the conveyor belt, she soon found out that the cashier at Kroger had no intentions of ringing her up.
The employee then said that Meredith’s shirt was a slap in the face, and the clerk “was doing everything she could not to cry.” So, what was so offensive about Meredith’s top? It had a message that read, “Police Lives Matter,” with the words “All Lives Matter” underneath.
“She made me feel ashamed to have the shirt on and I don’t appreciate that,” Meredith said.
Meredith said a teenage cashier stepped away from the checkout line after seeing her shirt. She said she then overheard the girl speaking with a coworker.
“She was stating that the shirt I had on was basically a slap in the face to her and she was doing everything she could not to cry,” she said. [Source: ABC13]
This wasn’t the first time Kroger has been accused of turning away a paying customer for the same reason as Meredith was denied service, and like the others before her, she wasn’t going to let it slide because Meredith was wearing her blue t-shirt that simply said, “Police Lives Matter, All Lives Matter,” for a reason.
Meredith happens to be a police officer’s wife, and she was showing support for her hero husband who puts his life on the line daily, serving and protecting the “offended” clerk and the other citizens of Spring, Texas. Sadly, the cashier didn’t like what she was advertising and refused to ring her up, regardless of the fact that the employee is not in charge of anything other than running her cash register.
Right after Meredith left the store, she let others know what happened to her there, including Kimberly Colley who is the executive director of the Blue Bow Foundation, which supports police officers and their families. Colley was disgusted by this employee’s actions, but more so by the complete lack of response on the matter from Kroger.
“Our husbands risk their lives every single time they put on those uniforms, they’re walking targets and this is the least we can do to show there is support out there,” Colley said, according to KMOV. She added that her non-profit group, which used to support the store has cut off all ties with the retailer.
ABC13 reported that “Meredith said she complained to Kroger about the conversation multiple times but hasn’t received a response despite promises her concerns would be addressed.” That mirrors Kroger’s response to the police officer who was refused service. They spoke with her and then never responded.
Meredith doesn’t want the cashier to be fired, but she doesn’t think that the store should refuse service to somebody over their shirts. [Source: Blue Lives Matter]
Meredith said, “It’s important that people in the service industry know that no matter what, if someone walked in with a Black Lives Matter shirt on they needed to still be serviced.”
This is now at least the second time a Kroger employee is accused of disrespecting either a police officer or their family. A worker at a Louisiana location reportedly refused to serve a female cop, and the store didn’t seem to care when it was brought to their attention.
Any business that doesn’t support police, especially when they go as far as to kick them or those who support them out of their establishment, doesn’t deserve the protection they rely on from law enforcement when called upon.
These companies should be blacklisted by police and forced to sort out tense situations for themselves. Maybe after a few weeks of this, as well as a loss of customers who don’t feel safe shopping there, they will learn that the can’t rely on their disgruntled employees or Black Lives Matter to save them.