Betty Smith, 65, was shopping with her son at Lindmann Grocery in Industry, Texas earlier this year when three employees stopped her from leaving the store after she found $50 on the ground, per Fox 26.
Surveillance video shows the employees locked Smith in the store and physically assaulted her over the $50. According to Smith, a store manager said she couldn’t take the money because it may have belonged to someone else.
At one point during the altercation, Smith said she was put in a chokehold, and one of the employees used racial slurs.
“They just jumped all over me and choked me…She was spitting all in my face…I was too scared to spit in her face,” Smith recalled of the incident.
Family members of Smith arrived at the store to help deesclate the situation only to be handcuffed by officers.
The three employees involved in the incident haven’t faced criminal charges but were fired by the store owner following the incident. Still, Smith and community activists seek arrests for the employees.
“This grandmother, this beautiful elderly Black woman who is suffering and fighting cancer, did nothing wrong in that store,” activist Quanell X said.
Austin County District Attorney Travis Koehn said in a statement that an investigation into the incident is still ongoing.
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