Calgary woman says she felt racially profiled at a Calgary Co-op

A black woman believes she was racially profiled and followed through a Calgary Co-op by an undercover loss prevention worker while shopping on the weekend.

Adora Nwofor, a local comedian and anti-racism activist, told CBC News that when she informed store management about how uncomfortable she felt with a man apparently following her, they did nothing.

Nwofor says the incident occurred Sunday evening at the Crowfoot Co-op.

She says she was picking out some cheeses she liked when she noticed a young man looking at her.

At first, Nwofor says, she thought nothing of it, but when he kept appearing in aisle after aisle — and never acknowledged her — she became suspicious.

"Then I went maybe three aisles down and the person peeked around the corner and went back and I was like, 'I'm being profiled,'" she told CBC.

Nwofor turns the tables

Nwofor says she then took out her phone and began filming the young man — believing he was an undercover loss prevention worker — and following him throughout the store.

• See excerpts of Nwofor's footage at the top of this story. CBC Calgary has blurred the face of the man she suspected was an undercover loss prevention worker because Calgary Co-op said it could not immediately say whether or not that was the case.

In the video, the man questions Nwofor why she's following him.

"Can I help you?" he asks.

"No," replies Nwofor.

"Is there a reason you're just randomly following me?" he asks.

"Not random," she says. "Neither is your following me random."

Moments later, the man asks a clerk to get management.

Manager neither confirms nor denies

Nwofor and the man continue to argue about the situation, and when management approaches, they ask Nwofor to shut off her camera before eventually telling the man to "carry on."

Nwofor confronts the manager:

"This person doesn't work for you? This person is not under any sort of consultancy to work for you? Because this person followed me."

The manager tells Nwofor he doesn't need to comment on that.

Nwofor said after the interaction with the manager, she left the store and "truly was not sure" whether the person was a loss prevention worker.

But when she posted her video on Facebook, Nwofor said she received direct messages from people claiming to be the man's friends and family.

"They were fairly aggressive telling me to leave the loss prevention person alone, 'they're just doing their job' and 'they have racialized people in their family,'" she said.

"And for me, that really means nothing because anti-blackness is everywhere, even amongst black people."

Nwofor says regardless of whether or not the person works for Co-op, she feels the manager did not properly handle a situation where a customer said they were uncomfortable.

"I was questioning why this person was following me, and how come you became concerned that I was following them, but you're not concerned that they were following me," she said. "That tells me that that person works there, and because I wasn't stealing, that was profiling."

Nwofor says if the manager had simply confirmed the man didn't work for the store, she would have apologized to him for her error.

Co-op says it will investigate

Karen Allan, spokesperson for Calgary Co-op, initially said they couldn't confirm whether the man worked for Co-op as they hadn't been able to contact the loss prevention team, but they're investigating the incident.

"We're very happy that she brought this to our attention," she said, adding the investigation would likely take a week and Nwofor would hear from them directly.

Nwofor says she'd like to see some action from Co-op.

"I think I deserve an apology," she said. "And they also need to train their loss prevention better. They're supposed to find people who are stealing, not follow people who might steal."

In posting her video online, Nwofor says she was trying to send a message.

"I want people to know that these things are happening so they don't feel like they're losing their mind, because it's actually happening," she said.

"This is not the first, second, third or 100th time this has happened to me, but it's the first time I recorded it.

"Racism happens anywhere at any time. It doesn't have to be deliberate; it doesn't have to be malicious. But it is definitely there and we need to continue having conversations and educate ourselves."

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