Chesapeake, VA — A 16-year old girl and her 3 friends, who are all Black, were recently wrongfully detained and locked inside a beauty supply store in Virginia when the owner mistook them for shoplifters. Their parents believe the girls were racially profiled during the incident.On Friday, the 4 girls went to Coco Beauty Supply in Chesapeake after eating at a nearby Subway restaurant. One of them bought a hairbrush from the store but when they tried to leave, they found out they were locked inside.
It turned out there was a recent shoplifting incident in the store and they put pictures of the real culprits in the area, including the Subway restaurant. Upon noticing the picture, a Subway employee called a security guard.
“Served the girls then security brought us a picture of the suspects, noticed one was sitting eating and alerted security and dialed 911,” the employee said in a statement.
The manager apparently locked the 4 girls inside the store until the police arrived. The girls were eventually released since police determined they were not involved in the robbery that happened in December.
Reubin Houston, the father of one of the teens, filed a police report claiming that his daughter and friends were racially profiled.
“I’m personally thinking everybody is going to be a suspect if you have braids and weave and you’re black. I mean, even the kids are suspects now. I guess mine was,” Houston told WAVY. “My daughter and her friends won’t ever forget about that.”
The manager has since apologized for mistaking the girls’ identities but claimed that it was the security guard’s instruction to lock the girls inside. The security guard, however, denied it but admitted to calling the police on the girls.
Moreover, the Chesapeake police department agreed that the girls shouldn’t have been locked in the store. They are looking into the possibility of abduction charges.