Black Woman Accused Of Fraud After Buying Expensive Bag

Kayla Phillips, 21, was stopped by police in February at the 59th St. and Lexington Ave. subway station after purchasing a Céline handbag from Barneys at 61st St. and Madison Ave.

Via NYDaily News reports:

Four plainclothes cops accused a black woman of credit card fraud after the Brooklyn mom bought a $2,500 designer bag from Barneys — stoking a fresh round of outrage against the store.

Kayla Phillips, 21, a nursing student from Canarsie, told the Daily News she had long coveted the orange suede Céline bag. Armed with a cash infusion from a tax return, she took her Bank of America debit card and headed to the Madison Ave. flagship store on Feb. 28.

Phillips made the purchase without incident but says she was surrounded by cops just three blocks away, at the Lexington Ave. and 59th St. subway station.

“There were three men and a woman,” she recalled. “Two of them attacked me and pushed me against a wall, and the other two appeared in front of me, blocking the turnstile.”

The cops started peppering her with questions and demanding to see her ID.

Phillips’ attorney, Kareem Vessup, says an additional civil rights lawsuit against the NYPD and Barneys is pending.

The 5 p.m. confrontation was eerily similar to a clash between cops and 19-year-old Trayon Christian, who filed a discrimination suit this week accusing Barneys and the NYPD of racially profiling him. Christian, who is black, alleged he was followed into the street by undercover cops and accused of fraud after he used his debit card to buy a $349 Ferragamo belt at Barneys on April 29.

The young Queens man was cuffed and taken to the 19th Precinct stationhouse, but released with no charges, his discrimination suit said.

“They kept asking how I could afford this expensive bag and why had I paid for it with a card with no name on it,” said Phillips.

NYPD Arrested Black Teen for Buying $350 Belt

When a black teen went into a high end department store called Barneys New York and purchased a belt with his own debit card, a racist employee immediately alerted undercover NYPD cops which responded within second for this high-end store arrested the teen under suspicion he was using a stolen debit card.

The teen was taken to a mid-town Manhattan precinct where the NYPD was able to verify that the debit card was not stolen like the Barneys employee suspected and released him. The average New Yorker would have to wait up to a hour for a cop to respond to a crime while this upscale department store was able to have a person arrested within seconds of them walking out the door..

It is clear that Barneys as well as the NYPD see all young black men as criminals and could not comprehend how a young black teen could afford a $350.00 belt with all the racial profiling and oppression they are forced to endure here in America.

No black, Latino or liberty loving white person should ever spend a red cent in a Barneys store ever again !

"A young black man is suing both the NYPD and Barneys for wondering how in the world he could afford a $300 product, then harassing and arresting him. Trayon Christian, who was 18 at the time, bought a Ferragamo belt he'd been coveting from the department store after receiving a paycheck from his work-study job. "I wanted to go to Fifth Avenue, I knew exactly what I wanted," he told the Daily News. But on his way out, he was handcuffed. Two undercover detectives accused Christian of using a forged debit card after being alerted to the purchase by the store. Even after Christian showed identification, he was taken to the station and held for two hours before being released with an apology...".* Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur, Ben Mankiewicz (What The Flick?! and TYT Sports), and John Iadarola (TYT University and Common Room) break it down on The Young Turks.