Sisters Quashae and Quanae Brown were Christmas shopping with their cousin Trinity Reid on Dec. 22, 2020, when they decided to stop by The Gap and Old Navy at the outlet mall in Hershey.
They purchased a few items, walked outside, and were met by two Derry Township police officers in the Tanger Outlets of Hershey parking lot.
The women said the officers accused them of stealing a onesie from Old Navy that cost $6. The officers searched their bags and found nothing stolen, but the women say they were still put in a police cruiser and jailed at the Derry Township Police Department.
The women said they were held in cells several hours before Derry Township police sent them home without filing charges.
This week, the women filed a lawsuit because they said they were harmed by the experience, which was based on an employee’s hunch that they were “acting suspiciously.” The women “committed no crime,” yet were detained without reasonable evidence, according to the lawsuit against the police department, five officers, and The Gap. Inc.
The women — who are all Black — said they believe Gap and Old Navy employees racially profiled them, according to their lawsuit. The suit also said Derry Township police violated the women’s Fourth Amendment rights to a lawful search and seizure, as well as Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection of the laws.
Derry Township’s police chief Garth Warner said he couldn’t respond to the specific allegations because of the pending litigation, but said: “The allegations against our officers and department are inaccurate, baseless, and without merit.”
The sisters’ attorney Richard Wiener said Quashae Brown is a college student at Lincoln University outside Philadelphia, and Quanae is a recent graduate of Dauphin County Technical School. Attorney Tom Archer is representing Trinity Reid in a separate but similar suit.
There was not a reasonable amount of evidence to search and detain the women for hours in jail cells, the sisters’ lawsuit said. When the women were released, Derry Township police did not express remorse or offer an explanation for why they were held for hours, according to Wiener.
“There’s no other rational basis that I’m aware of at this point that would have led the store folks to suspect and accuse these girls of shoplifting, then for the Derry Township police to keep running with that ball,” Wiener said.
Four Derry Township police officers and one detective were sent to the outlets that day after an Old Navy employee called 911 and said the trio was stealing from Old Navy and The Gap. The Old Navy employee told police she’d received a tip from a Gap employee that the women were “acting suspicious” and had “stolen from them big time.”
The Old Navy employee showed police the store’s video surveillance footage and pointed out each of the women. The lawsuit said there was no evidence in the surveillance footage of the women stealing from either store.
“I can tell you unequivocally they did nothing wrong,” Wiener said.
The Gap employee later denied telling Old Navy the women stole anything, but admitted to saying they were “acting suspicious.”
The women said the ordeal caused them “pain, suffering, anxiety, embarrassment, humiliation and emotional trauma, some of which may be permanent,” according to the lawsuit. They are seeking compensatory and punitive damages, court costs, as well as a court order for the defendants to undergo racial sensitivity training.
“These are all good girls. They did not shoplift. The fact really screams out to me is their status as African Americans. This was scary for them,” Wiener said. “Fortunately they were released after several hours but those were several hours of extreme fear.”
