A Black police officer said his visit to his local Chick-fil-A left him feeling embarrassed and humiliated after his three white colleagues were all given free breakfast while he was left to pay for his meal.
Tracey Reid, a police officer in Clover, South Carolina, said he and his partners were all in uniform when they went to get breakfast at a Chick-fil-A in Augusta, Georgia, a few weeks ago during a work trip.
Reid said it’s normal for restaurant chains to offer police officers and other first responders complimentary meals as a gesture of appreciation for their service.
However, while they were in line, the staff members only offered free meals to Reid’s three white partners, but Reid had to pay for his food at the register.
“We came in together, same uniform, stood in line, there was never a time we were not together while standing in line,” Reid’s colleague, Clover Police Sgt. J. Gordon, told WSOC-TV.
Another of Reid’s colleagues, who also witnessed the transaction, said he was angered by the restaurant’s poor treatment and service to Reid.
“He said he had to pay for his meal and it infuriated me,“ said Detective Thomas Barnette. “And I said, ‘You want me to go say something?’ He was like, no, I don’t want you to cause a scene, but I could tell the way he looked; he just looked at his plate, he looked sad and humiliated and that made me really mad.”
“I was kind of humiliated and embarrassed, you know, at the whole situation. It seemed like it was a racial issue to me,” Reid said.
Reid wrote a letter to Chick-fil-A corporate, demanding retraining for staff members at the Augusta location he visited and for stronger compliance with civil rights laws.
The Augusta store owner wrote back, apologizing for the incident and offering Reid two vouchers for free meals, but Reid said something in the manager’s response was lacking.
“[The letter] said it was perceived that it was a racial incident, which I didn’t like, because it wasn’t perceived; it actually happened,” Reid said.
“He’s not the only one that perceived it. We all did, and it’s not perception, it’s what happened. It was a racial issue,” Barnette added. “I felt like it was a racial thing, and I felt like he was singled out.”
The manager called the incident a mistake, writing that the staff member who processed the meal was a team leader who doesn’t normally work at the register.
That excuse didn’t fly with readers.
“None of you should have accepted gratuity whether it is a common practice or not. The second your colleague was discriminated against you all should have thrown your meals away and walked out of the establishment. You should also contact your District Attorney or other legal counsel and ask them why it is not appropriate for public servants to accept gratuity. Outside of that… good job calling out blatant racism,” wrote one user on MSN.
Another added on YouTube, “To hell with that FAKE APOLOGY, there’s no excuse they can give for this. You can’t train a racist. Racism is an issue of the mind and heart.”