Customers Sue Macy's in $500m Racism Case

Macy's, the world's largest store, is facing a $500m (£300m) lawsuit over claims that it operates a policy of "racial profiling" which targets black, Hispanic and Asian shoppers as suspected shoplifters.

The huge class action is being led by African-American Sharon Simmons-Thomas, who was handcuffed to a bench in a windowless cell in the Manhattan department store, despite having receipts for her purchases.

An action filed in the Manhattan federal court claims that, while around 80% of customers who shop at the store are white, 92% of the 1,600 people held on suspicion of stealing last year were non-white. Most of those detained were never prosecuted.

Lawyers also accuse Macy's of extending the practice to its branches across the US in a coordinated policy of encouraging security guards and store detectives to home in on non-white shoppers.

The class action seeks damages for anyone coming forward with a claim of being wrongly targeted by Macy's as a shoplifter on the basis of race.

Douglas Wigdor, of New York law firm Thompson, Wigdor and Gilly, which filed the suit, said the practice of racial profiling went on in many shops but was "rampant" at Macy's, whose parent company, Federated Department Stores, owns another famous city store, Bloomingdale's.

Mr Wigdor said that the case was not about supporting shoplifting and that real thieves should be arrested.

"This has to do with stereotypes and unfairness, whether people are doing it intentionally or in the back of their minds they believe that people of colour are out there shoplifting much more than whites," he said. He predicted thousands would come forward and that the $500m damages figure was a minimum estimate. Federated has called the charges "baseless, reckless and false".

Ms Simmons-Thomas, a legal secretary, was a regular customer at the flagship Macy's store. But as she was leaving the shop last December after buying kitchenware, she was stopped by two plain-clothes store detectives who allegedly ignored her attempts to show them receipts and marched her across the store "like a common criminal".

In a detention cell within the store she was photographed, subjected to a pat-down search and handcuffed, while staff allegedly tried to persuade her to sign a confession.

Ms Simmons-Thomas, 40, said: "I was trying to plead with them but I was yelled at. The whole experience was frightening, humiliating and degrading."

She said the staff made comments about the fact that she lived in the Bronx and seemed surprised that she worked at a prestigious Manhattan law firm.

The lawsuit claims they ignored her protests that she was due to pick up her nine-year-old daughter and held her for more than an hour before banning her from Macy's for seven years and turfing her back on to the street, where she broke down crying.

The action seeks to show that similar actions are commonplace at Macy's branches.

"I think this happens a lot, in many stores, and it is time for a change - African-American and other non-white people should not have to go to the store and be profiled. We have the right to shop like anyone else," she said.

The lawsuit alleges that Macy's supervisors and staff use codes such as "number two male" to alert each other by radio to black shoppers.

In a statement, Federated Department Stores said: "Federated do not stop shoplifters because of their race - we stop them because we think they are stealing. To suggest that alleged isolated incidents, which are contrary to Federated's express policies against discrimination, is a national pattern and practice is totally baseless."