- A corrections officer in Georgia said he was mistaken for a shoplifter at a Walmart and handcuffed.
- Now, David Conners, who is Black, is suing the retailer, saying he was racially profiled.
- Conners said he was held by investigators even after providing them with two forms of identification.
A corrections officer in Georgia filed a lawsuit against Walmart, saying he was racially profiled when he was mistaken for a known shoplifter, handcuffed, and later held by investigators even after he provided identification.
David Conners, a Black corrections officer working in Clayton County, said he was shopping for homewares at a Fayetteville Walmart when he was misidentified by store employees as someone with the last name "Wright," who had stolen electronics there multiple times, ABC News first reported.
Conners said after a Fayetteville police officer confronted and handcuffed him in the store, he provided the officer with two pieces of identification. His lawsuit says that one of those documents showed that Conners was a corrections officer, but he was still taken to another room and held there, per ABC News.
According to Conners' court filing summary, seen by Insider, Conners also filed a complaint for false imprisonment against a "Jane Doe" in his lawsuit against Walmart.
Terance Madden, Conners' attorney, told ABC News: "He's just in the store, minding his own business, when he's approached by the police, and everything went downhill from there."
Conners said after he was shown footage of the shoplifting suspect, he told the officers he had visible tattoos that the suspect did not have. He said officers refused to release him, however, and he had to wait until investigators called someone familiar with the case before he was set free.
The corrections officer said he sought therapy to deal with the incident, per ABC News. The outlet reported that Conners said neither the police nor Walmart reached out to apologize to him for the incident.
Walmart spokesperson Randy Hargrove told Insider in a statement: "We don't tolerate discrimination of any kind and take allegations like this seriously. We are not going to comment further on this pending litigation."
Madden, Conners' attorney, did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.