A pair of Kohl’s department store security guards whose incompetency was captured in a viral video continued to double-down on their false accusations that a woman had shoplifted merchandise.
But the video also showed the security guards never bothered to check the dressing room where the woman said she had left the clothes she was accused of stealing.
Now the woman, Yolanda Montoya, is calling for the security guards to be fired. So far, Kohl’s has only apologized, according to ABC 7.
The incident, which took place July 5 in San Leandro, California, highlights the importance of recording encounters with police and security guards and anybody in authority, especially when they are falsely accusing you of something.
The guards, whose names have not been publicized, chased Montoya down after she had left the store, accusing her of shoplifting, asking her to walk back inside the store with them into a back room.
Although she was under no requirement to return to the store with them, she agreed but insisted on recording. However, the guards told her it was illegal to record because it was private property but she continued recording and they called police.
When a police officer arrived, the guards told him she had shoplifted a pair of red shorts because they had seen her on camera waking into a fitting room with the shorts, then walking out without them.
However, she said she had never tried on red shorts. And all the clothes she did try on and did not purchased were left in the dressing room which they evidently did not check because they were with her the entire time after they had detained her.
She then emptied the entire contents of her backpack which was filled with diapers and other personal items, including the clothes she had purchased.
Even after realizing they had no evidence, they continued insisting they were missing a pair of red shorts or maybe it was a brown skirt they began saying once she established she never carried a pair of red shorts into the fitting room.
But that was the excuse they made to try and trespass her from the store, which would mean they would have to type her personal information into their computer system and have her arrested if she ever dared return.
And when she began questioning how they could trespass her, they decided they would just “let her go.”
“What I want to do i let her go, we don’t have to put her into the system, and handle it that way but at the end of the day, I’m still missing stuff even though I went to go check,” he said.
“You did not go check the damn fitting room” she responded. “You are a liar.”
Watch the condensed video above or the full video here.