Karen Ivery was shopping at a Target store in Blue Ash, Ohio, and had over $1,000 worth of groceries in her cart. When she got to the checkout, instead of paying the bill, she started asking the cashier for “reparations.”
According to the police report, the cashier claimed that Ivery brought up reparations several times during their brief encounter before the manager arrived. When the manager did arrive, Ivery started walking aggressively towards them while still demanding reparations.
The police report says that Ivery kept berating the manager about reparations and her privileged life. This is when Zach Cotter, a loss prevention officer, intervened and asked Ivery to calm down and leave the store.
However, Ivery began screaming at Cotter and followed him to his office. When he tried to shut the door, she forced her way in, and that’s when Cotter threw a punch to defend himself.
Police were called to the scene, and Ivery was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault and resisting arrest. Cotter was not charged with any crime as it was deemed he acted in self-defense.
In a bodycam video, Ivery told an officer she wanted the cashier to contact the manager “so we could have a larger conversation about how money works, and how the provision works, and how it’s been working in our community in a very wrong way.”
“This is my Rosa Parks moment,” she added.
According to the manager’s statement after the incident, a cashier called her over when Ms Ivery asked for her grocery bill of over $1,000 by covered by reparations.
She claimed Ms Ivery said she had a ‘privileged life’ and that she was ‘owed this’.
Karen Ivery was sentenced to one day in confinement and charged $110 for Disorderly Conduct.
