"Are you okay?" Khalil nodded, but his eyes were wet, and he was blinking fast to keep from crying. "I didn't do anything wrong. I just bought the shoes. That's all I did."
Ryan's voice was gentle but firm. "I know. And I'm going to make sure everyone else knows, too. What's your name?" "Khalil.
Khalil Garner." "Khalil, I need your phone number and your parents' contact information. I'm going to call my boss right now and tell him what happened, and I promise you this isn't over. That officer and that woman are going to face consequences for what they just did to you." Khalil gave Ryan his information, picked up the shopping bag with his sneakers that had been kicked to the side during the arrest, and then sat back down on the bench to wait for his bus.
His hands were still shaking, and the excitement he had felt walking out of the store was gone, replaced by humiliation and anger. Ryan pulled out his phone and dialed David Coleman's personal number. Coleman answered on the second ring. "Ryan, what's going on?" "Mr.
Coleman, we have a situation. A customer just got arrested outside the store for stealing sneakers that I sold him 20 minutes ago. The cop didn't check the receipt, didn't verify anything, just assumed the kid was a thief because he's black. I intervened, and the cop grabbed me and deleted my recording. But I told him you own the store, and he let the kid go.