Civil Rights Watch Presents the Retail Wil’ Out Award to Dillard’s Department Store

The Wil’ Out Award is presented to people or organizations who have gone beyond simple discrimination and malice into outrageous, inexcusable behavior. The phrase “wilding” became known to the greater American public in the wake of the Central Park Jogger attack. Her attack was initially blamed on a group of young black boys from Harlem who were “wilding,” the news reports tell us, through Central Park, yelling, cavorting and intentionally frightening other park goers. (Note: No one says “wilding” but news reporters. All of us who use this phrase in our daily vocabulary pronounce it without the audible ‘d’. Therefore, one does not “wild out”, one “wiles out.”)

Dillard’s

Many big-box retail stores have come under fire lately for treating their minority customers in a discriminatory fashion. For instance, Macy’s East was sued by the State of New York for discrimination in the form of racial profiling in its New York stores. On January 14, 2005, Macy’s reached a settlement with the state, agreeing to pay a fine in the amount of $600,000 and to retrain its security forces to avoid racial profiling in the future.

However, next to Dillard’s, Macy’s looks like Jesse Jackson’s Shirts ‘n More. Since 1994, six people have been killed in Dillard’s. Five of them were minorities. The deaths occurred in Houston, San Antonio, Memphis, Arlington (TX), Cleveland and El Paso. None of the victims had weapons. Some were accused of shoplifting; some had the temerity to argue with Dillard’s security officers about unfair treatment and paid with their lives. Two of the victims had, in fact, stolen goods from Dillard’s (one stole a box of sunglasses, the other stole a beard trimmer). Those two people were shot in the parking lot, after having made it out of the store. Though criminal behavior, shoplifting is not a capital crime in the United States and security officers are not empowered to act as judge, jury and executioner. Furthermore, alleged shoplifting does not give the officer-cum-cowboy the right to endanger the lives of all the other people in the mall parking lot as he shoots at his suspect-bad guy.

Dillard’s employs off-duty and retired police officers as its security guards. Because Dillard’s views these officers as independent contractors, the company does not offer them any training or guidelines, they are not monitored and Dillard’s does not conduct any checks into their personal or professional backgrounds. These are the security guards who harass, beat, strip search and kill Dillard’s customers. Dillard’s stands alone as the only major department chain to use off-duty police officers. The company still maintains that using armed off-duty or retired officers for security is the best way to ensure the safety of its shoppers. You be the judge.

The killings that have taken place in Dillard’s stores are too numerous for me to describe in this brief column. However, I would like to elaborate on one of the most spectacular killings, that of Darryl Robinson, of Houston, Texas.

On June 1, 1994, Darryl Robinson went to a Dillard’s in Houston, Texas. Darryl was not suspected of shoplifting. A clerk accused Darryl of demanding $1 million from her and she called in Dillard’s security officers. Other witnesses and family members say Darryl asked for a $50 advance on his Dillard’s credit card. Instead of escorting Darryl out of the store for causing a disturbance, the security officers took him into a back room and beat him. The officers, however, were not finished with Darryl Robinson; after beating him, the officers hog-tied him. The security guards had already handcuffed Darryl’s wrists and his ankles. But that was not restraint enough. The officers bent Darryl in half and linked the wrist and ankle restraints behind his back. He was tied like a hog. Witnesses say an assistant manager was seen riding Darryl like a “bucking bronco” when he was tied up. Darryl died, in the hog-tied position, on a rolling flatbed dolly used to move boxes. There were two possible causes of his death: either Darryl died of a heart attack or of what is called “positional asphyxiation,” meaning he suffocated due to the hog-tying, fear, and the weight of the officers sitting on him.

Minority shoppers at Dillard’s are not always killed, most of the time the complaints come from people who have been harassed and humiliated. The law firm of Chargois & Ernster in Houston represents over 100 plaintiffs across the country who allege they were subjected to discriminatory treatment at Dillard’s stores. For information on the most recent cases, please see this article in HispanicBusiness.com.

Finally, it is apparently as difficult to be an employee of color at Dillard’s as it is to be a shopper. For a class action filed in 1999, Dillard’s reached a $5.6 million settlement on behalf of African-American employees in their Kansas and Missouri stores.

Dillard’s is as dangerous for minorities as Iraq is for, well, everybody. For this, Dillard’s is the reprehensible first recipient of Civil Rights Watch’s first Retail Wil’ Out Award. I urge you to read the full story on the Houston Press about the retail catastrophe that Dillard’s has allowed itself to become.

--Fannie Lou Too