Atlanta mother claims son was racially-profiled by Office Depot while buying printers
An Office Depot store in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images)
MARIETTA, Ga. - An Atlanta Instagram influencer says her 21-year-old son was racially profiled while doing a chore for her at a Marietta Office Depot.
Cassandra Wilcox, who goes by Crafting with Cassandra online, says it happened on Sept. 13 when she sent her son Anarrion Wilcox to the office supply store in Atlanta to pick up craft sublimation printers she had ordered for an upcoming class she was teaching.
He left the store without a problem, but she says things changed when he got to the Marietta location on Johnson Ferry Road to pick up the rest of the printers.
Wilcox claims a worker there called 911 to report that her son was stealing the printers and had done the same thing at the Atlanta store earlier.
In the 911 call, which was shared by Wilcox's attorney, the worker called the man a "potential suspect" who "had already hit one of our other locations."
When the police got to the scene, Wilcox says her son showed them the receipts, but they continued to harass him and question him about why he needed all the printers in the first place.
The 21-year-old was eventually let go.
Wilcox has hired civil rights attorney Harry Daniels to deal with the situation.
This wasn’t some simple mistake or miscommunication," said Daniels. "Office Depot knew he wasn’t some kind of criminal. He’d paid for the printers himself. He had the receipts. But all they saw was a young Black man in a hoodie."
In a statement to FOX 5, Office Depot denies that any racial profiling took place and said they have tried to contact the Wilcox family.
"Office Depot does not practice or condone racial profiling in any way. Based on Office Depot’s initial investigation into this incident, no racial profiling took place," a spokesperson for the company wrote. "We look forward to the opportunity to meet with this customer and his mother in the near future."