A Wisconsin woman says all she wanted was to get through the Walmart checkout lines a little faster. Instead, she says, she took a beating while no one helped her.
A Walmart shopping trip turned into a horror story for 70-year-old P.K. Shader. According to Shader, she was senselessly beaten by a teenage Walmart employee after they had a verbal argument. Shader, who is white, claimed that she was punched in the face repeatedly by the teen employee, who is Black, while no one intervened to help her defend herself from the attacking worker.
Shader wants to raise awareness of safety issues at Walmart locations across the country, urging witnesses to step in and defend someone if they see a Walmart employee attacking a customer. She shared her story with as many people as possible, not just at her preferred location in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin.
After the alleged attack, the police responded to a call around 7 pm that the elderly woman had been punched in the head several times by an angry Walmart worker. Although Shader suffered injuries to her head and face, she did not require any medical attention when the police arrived. Instead, she wanted the cops to arrest the Walmart worker and throw her in the back of the squad car with her hands cuffed.
The employee was a seventeen-year-old cashier named Jazareia Velasquez. The attack allegedly occurred after Shader asked Velasquez to get her manager so she could report a negative interaction that she had just had with the cashier. Shader was causing quite the stir while waiting for her cashier to check her out – and even tried to snap a picture of the Walmart employee without her consent.
Shader said, “She went crazy. She flew, and she punched me, fist right here [in the face] over and over again. I’m never walking into Walmart again, that’s for sure.”
The elderly woman had suffered several blows to the head and face, forcing police to side with Shader after she told them what had happened. Velasquez was subsequently arrested and charged with aggravated assault of an elderly person as well as disorderly conduct.
Shader claimed that the most surprising thing was that no one stepped in to stop the attack from happening, even though coworkers “knew” that the seventeen-year-old cashier had a bad temperament. “What if it was your grandmother? What if it was your mother?… The managers knew she was a loose cannon. The first manager said nothing. The second one told me so. So, why did they keep an employee like that? That’s a bigger problem than not having security,” said Shader.
Shader is currently recovering from the attack, but she wants people to step in and stop this type of thing from happening to other old people shopping at Walmarts. She said, “I just want to tell people: ‘Pull out your phone. Give somebody a break.’ No one’s asking you to dive in and be hurt, but pull out your phone and document it and yell, ‘Call the police.’”
The incident has raised concerns about the safety of shoppers at Walmart locations across the country. Walmart has issued a statement saying that they take the safety of their customers and associates very seriously and that they are cooperating with the authorities in the ongoing investigation.
This incident serves as a reminder that safety is a top priority when it comes to shopping at Walmart or any other retail location. Shoppers should always be aware of their surroundings, report any suspicious behavior to store personnel or law enforcement, and be prepared to defend themselves if necessary.
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Sources: AWM, WLBT, ABC7 Chicago
