A local Kroger store banned a woman of color: Was it racial discrimination?

A Waynesboro woman has been banned from the Kroger grocery store on Arch Avenue, and from our look into what led to the move by store management, putting it mildly, some things aren’t adding up here.

“This situation has created a serious hardship for her and her son. She does not have a car, and Kroger was her most accessible option for groceries. She now has to spend significantly more money having groceries delivered,” said LeighAshley Harden, the secretary of the Waynesboro branch of the NAACP, which has been trying to assist the young Black woman caught up in the matter, Dominique Fields, who was barred from the store in October over issues dating back several months involving the use of Kroger’s CashApp service, which she used to deposit money to pay her rent.

The NAACP investigation documented three instances in which store management tried to prevent Fields from using the CashApp service, alleging that she was attempting to engage in fraudulent transactions while using the service – when the issue was Fields, store employees and store management not understanding the service’s transaction limits.

The third incident, on Oct. 3, led store management to call Waynesboro Police over an error involving literally one dollar, and an assistant manager told the responding officer that he believed Fields was “trying to scam him,” according to body-cam footage of the interaction, and filled out a trespass notice claiming her “activities were disruptive and/or damaging to Kroger business.”

“No specific conduct was identified. No theft occurred. No physical altercation took place. No profanity or threatening language was used by Ms. Fields,” Harden said.

We’ve reviewed local court and police records, and can’t find any attempts to bring charges against Fields alleging attempted fraud, so, there’s that.

Fields filed a complaint with Kroger corporate on Oct. 8, and was informed a day later that the company would investigate and get back to her.

The final dispensation, dated Oct. 22:

“After careful consideration, the decision to issue a trespass order from store #228 has been upheld,” was the reply from someone in the Kroger Customer Connect department who identified herself only as Tara.

Fields wrote back to ask how the determination was made, but has not gotten a response.

That’s five months and counting that she’s been waiting for that answer.

“I’m curious as to how I was trespassed to begin with. While I don’t have future intentions to patronize Kroger given the current situation, I would like answers,” Fields said.

“I can’t help but to feel this was discriminatory by nature, and that my civil rights were violated. If the end result is Kroger refusing to acknowledge their unethical practices, I’ll cut my losses and move on. But this situation just doesn’t add up,” she said.

We reached out to Kroger corporate to try to get the answers that Fields has been denied, but our efforts to connect have been unsuccessful, unfortunately.

So, we share in Fields’s frustrations, and the frustrations of the local NAACP, which also just wants to know what went down here.

“Because Kroger is a private company, they are within their legal right to trespass anyone for any reason, which limits what we can pursue from a legal standpoint. However, I believe public awareness could make a difference in this case,” Harden said.