The CVS pharmacy chain is being sued by four former store detectives who claim they were ordered to racially profile black and Hispanic shoppers at three city stores. NY1's Erin Clarke filed this report.
Four former store detectives for CVS have filed a class action lawsuit claiming they were told to racially profile customers.
"Our clients, all four of them, were directed—in no uncertain and in expressed terms—to target and focus on black and Hispanic shoppers when looking for shoplifters," says attorney David Gottlieb.
The four former employes, all of them black or Hispanic, also charge that they were harassed because of race. The lawsuit singles out the actions of two supervisors in CVS’ loss-prevention department overseeing stores in Manhattan and Queens. The suit was filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court.
New Yorkers we spoke to said they're not surprised by the allegations.
"I think it's more commonplace than we'd like to think it is," one woman says.
"Sad, just sad," another person says. "Drive a car. It happens every day."
It's a problem the former employees' lawyer says reflects a pervasive institutional problem among large retail stores.
Last year Macy's and Barneys New York both reached settlements with the New York attorney general to address complaints the retailers routinely profiled minority shoppers.
"In those cases, they were inferring largely from the way they were treated that there was racial profiling going on. Here, we've people from the inside, people from behind the curtain who can testify to exactly what they were told, what the policy and practices were at CVS," Gottlieb says.
The four CVS detectives who filed the lawsuit have all left the retailer this year. Their attorney says he expects more employees or former employees of the giant drug store chain to join the litigation.
CVS, in a statement, denied the allegations and says the company will defend itself.