Two roommates walked into a CVS in Richmond, Virginia to make a simple purchase – sliced cheese. However, they got more than what they came for. Philip Blackwell and his roommate Ricky Berry told their story to ABC affiliate WRIC. The two roommates didn't think that asking a CVS employee if they had sliced cheese was a harmful or offensive question. It was quite simple, to be frank. After informing the two roommates that they did not carry sliced cheese, the employee disappeared. There was another customer shopping who also happened to notice the sudden disappearance of the employee, along with the rest of the CVS staff. “We looked around for probably 30, 45 minutes and we couldn’t find anybody,” Blackwell said.
As the search continued for the store employees, a police officer from the Richmond Police Department arrived and began to help in the search to find the missing employees. The officer opened the emergency door, triggering the alarm, which resulted in a call from the alarm company asking the officer what was going on. The search party for the CVS employees became awkward and almost a joke to the officer and customers. “He was laughing with us because, like, this is how weird, apocalyptic movies start,” said Berry.
Where were the employees? They were hiding in the back of the store in a locked room because they were scared of Blackwell and Berry. Berry recorded the incident on Snapchat and explaining that they were being kicked out of CVS after the employees said they were afraid of them. The officer no longer found the incident funny, and neither did Berry or Blackwell. “He just told us that we need to leave premises or else we would be arrested for trespassing and that flipped the script on all of us. We had no idea what was going on.”
Berry and Blackwell understand that the officer was just doing his job but like many of us, they don't understand why CVS employees would be afraid of two black men asking for sliced cheese.
A CVS spokesperson apologized to the two roommates and informed them that the employee responsible would be interviewed and potentially retrained.
What do you think of this issue? Should more have been done? Let us know in the comments.
