Former Seattle mayoral candidate Nikkita Oliver says she witnessed “racist, white supremacist and wrong” behavior from a Safeway security guard on Sunday.
Oliver recorded a Facebook Live video Sunday afternoon inside the Safeway on Rainier Beach as she confronted a security officer. She claims the guard was “obviously” following black teenagers around the store while they shopped.
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“You all are straight up criminalizing these young people having the security guard follow them through the store when they haven’t done anything,” she says in the video, “Can you just let them do their shopping and leave them alone?”
In the video, she’s seen following the security guard as he approaches a manager who tells her the security guard works for a different company. The video does not actually show teenagers being followed by the security guard.
KIRO 7 reached out to Oliver and the company that employs the security guard and received no responses.
Safeway gave this statement to our partners at KIRO Radio:
"Discrimination is contrary to who we are as a company and how we serve our customers and communities. We take the allegations seriously and are conducting a thorough investigation. The security individual featured in the video is employed by a third party security service, and he is no longer assigned to a Safeway store."
Oliver’s Facebook Live video has been seen more than 334,000 times. After receiving media inquiries, she posted another video on her page to explain why she recorded the interaction.
“What precipitated my actions is constantly watching young black and brown folks be under attack and constantly be targeted,” she says, “and I wanted to make sure people can see that.”
Cox Media Group
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