A black Macy’s shopper said Sunday he was unfairly targeted by cops, who used store surveillance to profile him before subjecting him to an unfair search for stolen merchandise.
“I felt very much humiliated and embarrassed because a crowd was watching me as they were going through my items,” Art Palmer, a fitness consultant and gym teacher from Crown Heights, said in a press conference outside the flagship store at 34th Street and Seventh Avenue.
Palmer, who said he’s “older than the officers who stopped me” in April, was joined Sunday by civil-rights lawyer Norman Siegel and state Sen. Eric Adams.
They want the city’s Commission on Human Rights to investigate whether retailers and the NYPD are partners in racial profiling.
Palmer is the second Macy’s customer in recent days to allege he was singled out for “shopping while black.”
Rob Brown, an accomplished actor, sued Macy’s and the NYPD last week, claiming he was illegally detained after buying a watch for his mom at the Herald Square store.
Two other New Yorkers also allege “shop-and-frisk” incidents at the upscale Madison Avenue retailer Barneys. One has filed suit.
Palmer said he went shopping at Macy’s on April 24 and left with two bags of paid-for items.
“As I approached Fifth Avenue, four undercover cops surrounded me, pulled out their badges and demanded to see my merchandise,” he said.
Palmer said he returned to Macy’s the next day and a manager told him the cops he encountered were acting on their own. “They don’t have permission to come in the store and view their [surveillance] cameras, but they do,” Palmer said he was told.
Police declined to comment.
A Macy’s spokesman said Sunday the company is investigating Palmer’s complaint.
Macy’s responded to the lawsuit filed by Brown with a statement saying its staffers “were not involved in Mr. Brown’s detention or questioning. This was an operation of the New York City Police Department.”