Family alleges racial profiling at Dave & Buster's...

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http://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2016/07/family_alleges_racial_profilin.html
Family alleges racial profiling at Dave & Buster's

Dave & Buster's, a restaurant chain that bills itself as a family-friendly sports bar and arcade, has come under fire after an alleged incident of racial profiling at one of its locations in Clackamas County.

Rachel Batiste-Barber went to the Happy Valley Dave & Buster's on Saturday evening with her husband and kids after she found an online coupon for the restaurant, she detailed in a Facebook post.

After playing games for more than an hour, a girl's purse went missing at the restaurant, Batiste-Barber said. It was quickly turned in to the front desk, but short about $16 in cash that had been inside.

When the owner of the purse went to the desk to reclaim it, she complained about the missing money and was told that the person who had turned it in was "a black guy with cornrows," Batiste-Barber said. The people working the desk then allegedly instructed the young woman to "find the man and ask him," according to the Facebook post.

According to Batiste-Barber, her husband, the only black man in the establishment, was singled out and the purse owner accused him of taking the money in front of her and their children.

"I refrained from cussing the young lady and her mother out in the family establishment and, instead, decided to go to the front desk and speak with the woman who sent them on a witch hunt to find a man who's (sic) description my husband 'fit,'" Batiste-Barber wrote.

After arriving at the front desk, Batiste-Barber said an employee incorrectly identified her husband as the man who had turned in the purse, even after another worker said the first employee was mistaken.

"My husband asked them to check their cameras so my kids could get back to their evening. They said 'we can't,'" Batiste-Barber said.

Despite that, she said the family was approached by four security guards, followed soon after by a group of law enforcement officers who allegedly told Batiste-Barber and her family "a crime had been committed, and that we needed to be questioned," she wrote.

Batiste-Barber and her family were taken outside, she wrote, where the officers ran her husband for warrants because he "fit a description," though she said that none of the officers spoke with any Dave & Buster's employees to get a description even though the family was asking for the workers to come speak with them, which they did not do.

"All they did do was be sure the security guards stood around my family and I making us look like criminals," she wrote.

"We didn't do anything wrong besides be black with cornrows."

After about half an hour, Batiste-Barber was able to speak with the restaurant's general manager, "who offered no resolution for what my family had just gone through," and the officers told her she was free to go.

"Of course we're free to go home," she wrote. "We didn't do anything wrong besides be black with cornrows. But we were here to have fun. We paid to be here. Our family was in the middle of game play. We came here to enjoy ourselves."

A spokesman for the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office confirmed that they did respond to a call to the restaurant, determined no crime had been committed and went about their business.

A message to Batiste-Barber went unreturned Thursday morning.

But in a statement to KATU News, April Spearman, vice president of marketing of Dave and Buster's, apologized on behalf of the chain.

"Dave & Buster's is committed to maintaining an inclusive environment that's welcoming to all guests," Spearman told the station. "We sincerely apologize to the Batiste family for their distressing experience. This matters to us and irrespective of the outcome of our internal investigation, we will be re-educating our team on sensitivity and guest relations."

Still, Batiste-Barber wrote that she had some strong takeaways from the experience. Namely, that "a white woman can point her finger at a black man and he's automatically assumed guilty by everyone around."
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