The New York luxury department store Barneys has agreed to settle and pay up a penalty of more than half a million dollars after its customers and former employees complained about the store's alleged manner of zeroing in on minority shoppers for extra surveillance.
Barneys New York has agreed to pay $525,000 to settle allegations of racial profiling after a nine-month investigation conducted by the New York state attorney general.
In the complaints filed by both customers and former personnel, door guards of the luxury store would allegedly single out minority walk-in customers and follow them as they come inside and walk around the store.
This allegedly pushes salespeople to avoid assisting minority clients to rid of the pressure of being dragged into investigations done by in-store detectives.
The store has also been "conducting more queries on credit-card fraud for its customers who are minorities." the investigation noted.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of the lead investigation for this half a million dollar settlement said in a statement reported by Reuters that his office found a "disproportionate number" of black and Latino customers being detained at Barneys for allegedly being suspected of shoplifting and credit card fraud.
As penalty, the store agreed to pay up for fines and expenses. Barneys are also required to hire an "anti-profiling consultant" for two years and update its policy on handling customers detained for suspicions of theft.
The investigation team has likewise recommended the store to improve its record keeping on detaining shoppers and to upgrade training for security and sales personnel.
As cited in New York Daily News, Mark Lee, chief executive officer (CEO) of Barneys, expressed in a statement that the store was happy with the settlement.
Schneiderman, meanwhile, said in a press release that the agreement "will correct a number of wrongs, both by fixing past policies and by monitoring the actions of Barneys and its employees to make sure that past mistakes are not repeated."
