Walmart ordered to pay $4.4 million in racial-profiling lawsuit. Customer said he was spied on by em

• Walmart is being ordered to pay a man $4.4 million after he sued the store for racial profiling and harassment.
• Michael Mangum said an employee spied on him and called the police when he refused to leave the store.
• Lawyers for Mangum said the employee had a history of making false police reports on other customers.

A man in Oregon is getting $4.4 million in damages from Walmart, after he sued the company, saying he was racially profiled and harassed by an employee.

Michael Mangum, a Black man, said an employee at a Walmart store in Wood Village, Oregon, "spied" on him while he was shopping for a light bulb for his refrigerator, according to a news release from his lawyers. 

The lawsuit said the employee, Joe Williams, "spied" on Mangum as he shopped. He then told Mangum to leave the store, but Mangum did not, because, he said, he didn't do anything wrong.

Mangum's lawyers said in the news release that Williams told Mangum he would call the police and say Mangum threatened to "smash him in the face."

When Williams called the non-emergency dispatch line, he told them a person in the store was refusing the leave, but that they weren't violent, nor did they appear to have drugs or alcohol in their system.  The lawsuit says Williams told dispatchers that Mangum "just keeps checking me out," and said he asked Mangum to leave because Mangum "saw him walking by and 'started flipping out on me.'"

Mangum's lawyers said law enforcement who answered the employee's call about Mangum didn't do anything to Mangum, and even told managers at that Walmart the employee had a history of making false police reports on other customers.

After the incident, the lawsuit says a manager told Mangum the store had "large losses from theft," as a way to explain what had happened.

The incident happened in March 2020. Mangum's lawyers said the employee kept his job for months after his encounter with Mangum but was fired in July 2020 for "mishandling $35 of Walmart property."

In the release, Mangum's trial lawyer said Mangum's jobs "would have been at great risk had he been charged with a crime," but that Mangum "refused to be intimidated by Williams' lying and bullying."

In a statement shared with Insider, Randy Hargrove, senior director for national media relations for Walmart, said, "We do not tolerate discrimination. We believe the verdict is excessive and is not supported by the evidence. Mr. Mangum was never stopped by Walmart's Asset Protection. He interfered with our associates as they were surveilling and then stopped confirmed shoplifters, and then refused to leave despite being asked to repeatedly by our staff and Multnomah County deputies. We are reviewing our options including post-trial motions."

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