At a meeting yesterday with Al Sharpton and other community leaders, the CEO of Barneys insisted, of two recent shop-and-frisk incidents, “No one from Barneys brought them to the attention of our internal security and no one from Barneys reached out to external authorities.” Despite the police’s proclivity for stopping people of color, that version of events seemed unlikely in a retail setting.
Now the cops have countered: “NYPD officers were conducting unrelated investigations and took action based on information brought to their attention by Barneys employees while in the security room,” said a spokesperson. The Times notes that Barneys’ recent security strategy — as stated by management — has been to “take chances” on stopping suspicious customers. Surely some of those people are white, but we haven’t heard about them.
