*A California Safeway grocery store has apologized to a local black woman after employees called 911 on her for donating food to the homeless.
On Sunday evening, Erika Martin went to a Mountain View Safeway with her sisters to give a care package to a homeless man who frequents the grocery store’s parking lot.
“That day I decided to give him dog food for his dog,” said Martin to KPIX.
But as she was sitting in the car while her sisters handed out the food to the homeless man, the cops rolled up and she didn’t know what to make of it.
As it turned out, the store manager thought she was a shoplifter after Martin entered the store and made “eye-contact” with a black male who was also suspected of shoplifting.
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It’s another case of when living while black goes wrong… and this time because two black folks noticed each other.
“[the officer] was like, ‘Well, we were called here because you fit the description of someone taking items out of Safeway and bringing it back to your car,’” said Martin.
Martin, however, was not wearing the same shirt that was reported to the police and claims she never left the car.
“I said, ‘What! Wait, are you kidding me?’ I never even stepped foot inside of Safeway, I was in my car the whole entire time I was there,” she said, NY Daily News reported.
Part of the misunderstanding seemed to arise because her son had approached the deli earlier to see if they were offering cookie samples.
Her sister recorded the incident and posted it on Facebook, writing: “Right here at Safeway in Mountain View someone called the police on Erika. She was in her car the whole time. Crazy. You’ve got four cops here for one black person. Absolutely nuts,” she said.
Officers said the family had been fully co-operative and after a brief investigation, it was discovered that no crime had been committed.
“This is the type of world we live in you guys,” Martin wrote on Facebook. “We need to pray because this right here is crazy.”
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