A 65-year-old Black woman named Betty Smith is calling for the arrest of multiple Lindemann Grocery Store employees, according to a report in Fox26Houston. When Smith saw a $50 on the ground, she was out buying dessert for herself and her son who has special needs. It must be her lucky day, she remarked to the clerk, since all hell broke loose.
The white cashier told Betty that she couldn’t take the money because it could possibly belong to her friend who allegedly visited the store hours before. Store employees refused to ring up her groceries, then, locked her inside the store and ripped the money out of her hand. When she tried to defend herself, she was pushed and physically restrained.
What makes this worse is that both betty and her granddaughter Dezteni Cyrus were arrested when the employees called the police. They gave a statement to responding officers and Smith says they just took their word for it without ever asking her what happened.
The store’s manager was not there at the time but after getting word of what happened, fired all three employees the next day and apologized to Betty Smith.
“They offered to help pay bond money and offered to give me the $50 bill, and any support I needed, but I didn’t want it,” says Smith, a longtime customer of the store. “I feel like when things quiet down, the same thing is going to happen to me again.”
