A University of Calgary student says he intends to file an official complaint with Walmart after an encounter with a security guard at the Walmart in Sage Hill.
Jean Ventose said the incident happened at around 10 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 23 as he was shopping for headphones at the store in northwest Calgary.
Ventose posted a video of the encounter on Facebook, which has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
In the video, which Ventose said was taken with his phone, a woman who appears to be a store security guard is seen closely following Ventose, who can be heard speaking to her off camera.
The exchange begins with the security guard telling Ventose he can’t take her picture with his phone.
Ventose refuses to put his phone away and asks the security guard: “Why are you following me? Stop following me. I’m going to ask you nicely, stop following me.”
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Each time Ventose attempts to walk away, the security guard begins following him again.
Ventose becomes increasingly frustrated, telling the security guard: “I live in Canada. Why are you following me? Why don’t you follow someone else who wants to steal something? I’m a customer, I come here, I buy stuff, stop following me.”
Reached by phone on Friday, Ventose said he had left his regular headphones in his girlfriend’s car, so he stopped at Walmart to buy another set.
As he walked away from the headphone rack, the woman, who had the word “security” emblazoned on her jacket, told him he had to pay for them in the electronics department.
In the video, Ventose can be heard telling the security guard: “You’re making me feel uncomfortable, I don’t like that,” he says. “How do you know I’m not shopping for more things?”
Ventose calls for a manager who eventually shows up and Ventose is allowed to continue shopping without the security guard following him.
Ventose said he doesn’t know what the security guard’s motivation was, but at one point on the video he suggests it could be because he is “a black person with dreds” (dreadlocks).
Some of the comments posted on the Facebook video suggest he was being racially profiled, but others dismiss that suggestion, claiming they too have had problems with the same security guard.
“This has nothing to do with racism,” wrote one poster with the username Selah Edgar. “This woman has received complaints from white people, myself being one of them.”
“Just the other day I was followed around in three different stores. I assumed that it was because I was wearing a hoodie and leopard print p.j. pants,” wrote another poster, identified as Jennifer Guest-Viitala. “Don’t matter what you look like, nobody deserves this kind of disrespect.”
“I was walking in the baby aisle and had my son in the stroller and she followed me, too,” wrote another poster identified as Maria Webster. “I turned around to her and asked her if there was an issue and she said nothing and just kept following me.”
While Ventose plans to file a complaint, he says he doesn’t yet know the nature of that complaint, as he is waiting for legal advice.
When contacted by Global News, management at the Walmart in Sage Hill said they are aware of the complaint and referred us to Walmart head office. Despite repeated calls, so far the retailer has yet to provide a response to Global News.
However, another person who posted a comment on the video who identifies herself as Jolene Ellen Anthony wrote: “Wow. I hope your experience is actually followed up on. That’s all kinds of wrong. I worked as a manager at three different stores for almost a decade, no one should treat customers that way, EVER.”
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