An Omaha woman says she was verbally harassed while shopping at a grocery store over the weekend.
Maria, who asked KMTV to not release her last name, says she and her sister were shopping at the Baker’s near Leavenworth and Saddle Creek Rd. Saturday evening when a stranger began yelling profanities at them.
“We were in line to pay for things – the cashier was ringing me up but I forgot something so my sister got out of line to go get it while the cashier kept ringing up my other groceries. My sister came back and gave the item to the cashier,” says Maria. “Three people behind us, this man says, ‘hey, why does she get to cut?’”
Maria says she explained to the man her sister was with her. ”Is that okay?”
Maria says she looked at the cashier in disbelief and shook her head, which prompted the man to respond, “Don’t shake your head at me, you dumb b----.”
Maria says the man started making a scene and continued calling her a b----.
She says the cashier apologized to her for the man’s rudeness and called security to remove the man from the line. Another employee took Maria to the Customer Service desk, where they issued her a gift card to Baker’s for the inconvenience.
But according to Maria, the harassing continued into the parking lot, where she was able to capture his profanities on video.
“He told me he couldn’t wait for the wall to be built and that’d he see me on the other side of it.”
The two short clips show the man leaving the grocery store and looking over at Maria, yelling “See you on the other side of the border.”
Maria says her sister replied, “I’m a citizen,” to which he responded, “Not for long.”
“I’m not even Mexican,” says Maria, who is Peruvian. “But even if I was, you don’t talk to somebody like that. No matter the color I am, or woman, man – nobody should get talked to like that.”
Maria says she confronted the man outside the store and told him she was recording him and that he was being disrespectful.
The second clip shows him responding, “I’m a police officer, you dumb b----.”
To verify, Maria posted her shopping experience along with the videos and photos of the man on her Facebook page to see if anyone recognized the alleged officer. It was shared over 1,700 times, including by some who recognized the man and said he’s not in law enforcement.
“There’s no way our department would’ve hired somebody like this. I just knew there was no way,” says Maria.
The post drew hundreds of encouraging messages from friends and people all over the country, praising her for sticking up for herself.
“I was shocked that somebody could even talk to somebody like that. And we didn’t even do anything wrong to him. So I hope people speak up and defend themselves,” says Maria. “Because my sister even told him, ‘Hey, I’m a citizen,’ thinking that maybe he would apologize and he didn’t. So citizen or not, defend yourself.”
Maria filed an incident report with OPD and will be following up with a harassment or hate crime charge.
OPD says they’re looking into the matter but at this point the man has not been identified as being an officer, and that he does not meet OPD’s grooming standards because goatees are not allowed.
“Hopefully he sees this story and how much my post was shared so hopefully it stops here," says Maria. "I hope he learned his lesson.”
