Winnipeggers say recent alleged assault by staff not the first at Portage Avenue grocery store
CBC
Two Winnipeg women say a recent alleged attack against a woman accused of shoplifting at a local grocery store isn't the first time employees at the business have harmed people.
Angela Antoine told CBC News that last Sunday, she saw a store supervisor at the Foodfare on Portage Avenue at Arlington Street punch a woman after accusing her of stealing food.
Antoine believes the woman — who told her she is First Nations — was racially profiled by staff.
Winnipeg police showed up soon after to take statements from the woman, employees and witnesses, she said.
Police said they are investigating the incident.
The woman who was allegedly attacked declined a request for an interview with CBC through Antoine, who kept in touch with her following the incident.
But two other women — who contacted CBC News separately after a report about the Sunday incident — say they're concerned about the alleged violence at the store, and say they witnessed similar incidents involving customers last summer.
Cate Friesen said she saw a Foodfare employee kick a woman in the face last August, after the woman was accused of shoplifting. The woman was bleeding, and Friesen said she called 911 on her behalf.
"It concerns me that we're normalizing this and that somehow the possibility that they might have shoplifted gives somebody the right to punch them or to kick them," said Friesen, a former producer with CBC Manitoba.
"It's normalizing something that's not normal."
Friesen said the woman told her she was homeless and identified as Indigenous.
Alison Norberg says on Aug. 24 — just a day after the incident Friesen reported — she saw a female staff member punch a woman in the head at a bus stop at Portage Avenue and Burnell Street, which is next to the store.
The woman, who Norberg said appeared to be Indigenous, was sitting on a bus bench, when two employees came out of the store and seemed to be trying to grab something from her.
"She was holding onto her sweater as they were trying to grab something, kind of back and forth, and then one of the employees, a woman, from what I could see, was punching her in the head," said Norberg, who was near the bench waiting to get on a bus.