A CVS worker was thrust into the spotlight and consequently lost his job when a black customer recorded him calling the police on her for trying to use a legitimate coupon.
The customer, Camilla Hudson, was trying to make a purchase Friday night at a Chicago CVS. She had a coupon good for up to $17.99 in personal medical items, with an expiration date of December 2018.
CVS shift supervisor on duty, Morry Matson, believed it was fraudulent. He walked away from Hudson to phone the police, an unprecedented act when it comes to an innocent coupon dispute.
Hudson was quoted in a New York Times article saying, “he ran to the back of the store and slammed a door in my face” as she followed him to question his attitude and behavior towards her.
Another shift supervisor arrived and told her to leave. The video Hudson posted on Facebook shows Matson quivering, a right arm draped across his body to hold his shaking left arm up as he calls the police.
All over a coupon, Chicago Police responded to a call of an “assault in progress” it said in a statement. “Police were informed that a female was inside the store threatening the staff and refusing to leave,” it further said. According to Hudson’s video evidence, this is not true.
Social media has put race-relations in the spotlight dubbing this most recent one as “Coupon Carl”. There have been a series of well-documented encounters between white people and people of color, especially this year. See BBQ Becky and Permit Patty. The encounters typically formulate due to what should be casual misunderstandings on the white person’s behalf.
Public ridicule facilitates the crux of these interactions is an underlying notion that white people are threatened by people of color due to implicit bias; socially-constructed attitudes, ideas, and opinions keep POC in a position of inferiority.
Critics of Matson also believe documentation of the incident at CVS shows how everyday encounters between black and white persons pose an imminent threat to the lives of black people in comparison to those between two white people.
Disproportionate rates of police brutality and shootings happen across the country, according to a Washington Post database. This exacerbates the notion that when the police are called, the lives of POC are in imminent danger.
CVS issued a statement that it sincerely apologized to Hudson and “the two colleagues who were involved are no longer employed by CVS Health.” The Chicago Sun Times reported that Matson is currently running for City Council from the 48th ward in North Chicago.