Grocery store suspends worker who pepper-sprayed customer after mask confrontation

[left-of-center2012]

Ralphs Suspended Employee For Pepper-Spraying Customer Who Rammed Her With Shopping Cart When Asked To Wear A Mask

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Ralphs (grocery chain) confirmed Friday it suspended a store employee who pepper-sprayed a customer who rammed her with a shopping cart when she asked him to wear a mask. The employee had asked the man to wear a mask or leave the store. Instead, he rammed her with a shopping cart, so she pepper-sprayed him and called police.

“The associate was suspended for five days for not following company guidelines on responding to customers not wearing a face covering and not following de-escalation procedures, which could have prevented the incident,” a company spokesman said.

Witnesses to the altercation said the employee was defending herself, but she was still suspended for her part in the incident. The July 15 confrontation happened at the Ralphs on La Brea in the Mid-Wilshire District and was caught on cell phone video.

Face coverings are required in the state of California when social distancing cannot be observed. Ralphs also announced this week that customers would be required to wear masks in all their stores, effective immediately.

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/07/24/ralphs-suspended-employee-pepper-spray-shopping-cart-ramming-face-mask/

[rzemanfl]

1. That's bullshit. She was attacked. n/t

[MineralMan]

2. The man physically assaulted her.

She defended herself with pepper spray.

$15 per hour doesn't cover being assaulted with a shopping cart.

Support your employees, Ralph's!

[lpbk2713]

3. The employee was physically assaulted.

And you know it's a bad place to work when you have to arm yourself before you report to work.

[beachbumbob]

4. sounds like a gofundme opportunity and give ralph's the BIG FU

[marble falls]

5. After store employees have been shot and killed???

[CaptYossarian]

6. She's just another brick in the wall. Her rights mean nothing.

This PR move to save one douche customer will backfire.

[2naSalit]

7. Perhaps she should sue Ralph's and the attacker.

I think she'd probably win those suits.

[OrlandoDem2]

8. Self defense!!

[Silent3]

9. If this were Florida and the employee used a gun...

...they'd probably get a raise.

[Sherman A1]

10. I hope that she is in a Union Shop and they will

file a grievance against this suspension. I also hope that she files assault charges against the individual who shoved the cart into her. I was pushed backwards into a shopping cart by a Loss Prevention type at my store many years ago who refused to identify themselves to me in the backroom while I was Receiving. I did not file charges, but he was gone by the end of the day and I received an apology call from the Head of the LP Department.

[LisaL]

11. So guidelines call you for allowing customers to attack you and you not allowed to defend

yourself? Not very good guidelines.

[Luz]

13. While being paid by owner to enforce owner/state mandate.

[Takket]

12. Imagine if she was a cop...

A charging customer with a cart would have given her every right to kill him in a haul of bullets and it would be an open and shut case if being “afraid for her life”.

But because she is a grocery store employee left to fight this crisis of stupidity on the front lines... she gets suspended.

[Hortensis]

14. Oh, brother. Her best defense was following instructions

for protecting herself. I can see many disagree, but they should gird their emotional loins for the real possibility that she will be fired. She violated a bunch of rules and not only sprayed this miscreant but endangered other people in the area.

Does anyone know if Ralph's issues pepper spray to associates, and this one in particular? Or is this something she should not have been carrying at work and thus grounds for dismissal in itself?

One thing I know, I don't want to have to worry that I could find myself in a cloud of pepper spray at checkout courtesy of some pissed-off trumpster, and most of them here are, "handling" a situation.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. It seems to me that the employee rather overreacted.

Okay, so the customer shouldn't have rammed her with a shopping cart, but to immediately go to pepper spray? Of course, that's the kind of example that's being set by police and military enforcers everywhere, so there shouldn't be too much of a surprise here.

[Sherman A1]

16. I believe she under reacted

although I did like seeing him at the end of the video on the floor I suspect that was most melodrama on his part.

She should have shoved that cart right where the sun don't shine. I dealt with customers like this through 4+ decades of working in Retail and she was assaulted and did what she could to protect herself.

[sarisataka]

17. It is surprising that they suspended the employee,

I would have expected she would have been fired.