Source: Brandon Bell / Getty
Anytime there’s a reference to violence, grocery stores and Black people, chances are it will evoke memories of the racist mass shooting carried out by a white supremacist in Buffalo. Perhaps coming in at a close second place would be Walmart.
But over the past decade, the fateful collision of the aforementioned triumvirate of circumstances has seemingly increasingly made itself present particularly at the Kroger chain of supermarkets sprinkled across midwest and southern U.S. states.
The unfortunate trend reared its ugly head yet again just last month when a trigger-happy police officer in central Ohio gunned down Ta’Kiya Young, a 21-year-old mother of two young sons who was pregnant with her first daughter at the time of her shooting death.
Young was being blamed by the Blendon Township Police Department for her own death. But as this article will point out, the reason why she was shot is just as important as where she was shot — outside of a Kroger.
While the context behind Young’s shooting differs in nature from the other violence that Black people have suffered at and outside a Kroger location, the supermarket chain is the unavoidable common link. A request for comment left for Kroger was not immediately returned and the company has not publicly acknowledged Young’s death.
Keep reading to find several notable times Kroger supermarket was at the center of violence against Black people.
Gregory Bush | Source: Scott Utterback via Pool Photo.
Gregory Bush
Officials are still working to determine if race factored in Young’s shooting, what with the two officers involved being white men, one of whom shot her within seconds of seeing her. If that final determination is reached, it wouldn’t be the first time racism played a role in violence at a Kroger grocery store.
In 2018, after a white supremacist named Gregory Bush tried and failed to enter the predominantly Black church in Kentucky, he went to a nearby Kroger and shot and killed Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vickie Lee Jones, 67, both African Americans. Federal prosecutors successfully argued that Bush did not know his victims and opened fire because of their race. Bush came in contact with a third person, a Black man, who questioned him about the shooting. The man brandished his own weapon and opened fire on Bush in self-defense. A fourth person who was white and also legally armed told authorities that Bush did not fire upon him, saying “whites don’t shoot whites.” Bush was eventually sentenced to life in prison and was facing a second life sentence under federal hate crime charges to which he pleaded guilty.
Alvin Motley | Source: Ben Crump
Alvin Motley
In 2021, 48-year-old Alvin Motley joined the list of unarmed Black people gunned down by white people after a dispute that began over loud music. Motley was fatally shot at a gas station at a Kroger in Memphis, Tennessee. His alleged killer, Kroger security guard Gregory Livingston, was charged with second-degree murder and his trial is set to begin next month. Surveillance video of the shooting Livingston admitted to carrying out shows him pulling his gun and shooting Motley, who was armed with nothing but a cigarette and a can of beer.
11-year-old girl Tased
In 2018, a Cincinnati police officer tasered an 11-year-old girl at a Kroger supermarket for allegedly shoplifting. An off-duty officer working security at the supermarket fired his Taser at the girl while investigating several girls accused of stealing from the store, the police reported. The cop fired at the child’s back after she continued to walk away, ignoring his orders. She was arrested and charged with theft and obstructing official business. Astonishingly, the department’s policy permits officers to use stun guns on individuals aged 7 to 70.
6-year-old boy killed
In 2017, a car that was stolen from a Kroger in Mississippi was found abandoned with a 6-year-old boy shot to death in the back seat.
Toddler shot
In 2013, Chazrel Jaquan Burton, 21, was attempting to rob someone in a Kroger grocery store parking lot in Stone Mountain, Georgia when Jermaine Harrison stepped in to stop him. In retaliation, Burton shot at Harrison and fired bullets at his car. Two-year-old Evan Harrison and his mother were inside the car. The child was struck in a hail of gunfire. Young Evan was shot in the abdomen and was placed on a ventilator after the shooting.
Source: Facebook / Shaneeka Montgomery-Strickland
Kroger ‘Karen’
While this instance didn’t end in physical violence, a white woman dubbed “Kroger Karen” certainly posed a violent threat against a Black woman grocery shopping with her three kids in a Kroger in Detroit in 2020.
The whole incident started inside the store when Shaneeka Montgomery-Strickland’s son stepped on the bottom shelf to reach a bottle of Gatorade, which apparently upset the white woman. The situation escalated when Shaneeka and her children walked outside to her car. Montgomery-Strickland said the white woman, “went to her car, came back with the baby in the cart, called me the b-word, then she stood behind my car because I started videotaping after that.” The white woman effectively hed Montgomery-Strickland and her children hostage until the police arrived.
Ta’Kiya Young bodycam screenshot | Source: WOSU Public Media/YouTube
Ta’Kiya Young
The 21-year-old mother to two young boys was inside her car when she was approached by an officer and accused of shoplifting an alleged bottle of liquor on Aug. 24. After refusing an order to exit the vehicle, bodycam video footage from the Kroger parking lot shows another officer — identified by Young’s family as Connor Grubb — stand directly in front of Young’s car with his gun drawn; again, all over an allegedly stolen bottle of alcohol.
There was no direct threat to either officer when Grubb pulled out his gun, suggesting he was ready to use his weapon even if the circumstances didn’t call for it. As both cops aggressively and angrily cursed at her to get out, Young asked if they were “going to shoot” her. When the car slowly crept forward, Grubb fired the fatal shot with a split second. Now, despite video evidence to the contrary, the Blendon Township Police Department is suggesting Young tried to attack Grubb with her car by accelerating.
Grubb and the still-unidentified other officer were placed on administrative leave but have yet to face any discipline for the shooting. Grubb has not been officially identified by the Blendon Township Police Department thanks to “Marsy’s Law,” which allows local law enforcement agencies to keep cops’ identities secret. Young’s family called for Grubb to be arrested and charged not only with Young’s death but also with the death of her unborn child.
SEE ALSO:
What Is A ‘Karen?’ Breaking Down The Pattern Of Entitled And Problematic Behavior
