.png&w=128&q=75)
.png&w=128&q=75)
A young female manager at a Minnesota-area Chipotle was fired and slandered as a racist in the press after a group of black men accused her of racially profiling.
On Friday, Masud Ali, 21, posted a viral video to Twitter wherein the manager asks Ali and a group of his friends to show proof that they will pay for their food before employees begin to make their meals.
“Can a group of young well established African American get a bite to eat after a long workout session,” reads the caption of the video. Ali also tagged Chipotle’s official Twitter account. (See the video below.)
“You have to pay because you never have money when you come in here,” the manager says in the video.
“Y’all basically stereotyping us,” one of the men says in reply. “I’m about to beat up on they ass, I’m about to beat up on they ass,” says another, adding, “This s*** is wild.”
The men then comment about posting the video to Twitter.
The video, which currently has well over 7 million views, quickly blew up online and the manager was fired for her alleged racially-motivated actions. However, it appears the manager only asked for proof of potential payment because she believed Ali and his friends were the same people who came to the restaurant earlier in the week and dined-and-dashed (did not pay after getting their food.)
Moreover, Ali, who has a history of criminal theft charges and at least one indictment, has previously bragged on Twitter about repeatedly stealing food from the Chipotle location.
The Daily Caller reports on Ali’s previous tweets:
“Not a dine and dash we’re just borrowing the food for a couple hours,” Ali said in one of many messages on the topic of making off with free food.
In a since-deleted post, he said “aye man I think chipotle catchin up to us fam. should we change locations and yoooo what should we do.”
In a statement released by Chipotle, the company confirmed that they had fired the manager and announced that they will “retrain” their employees.
“Regarding what happened at the St. Paul restaurant, the manager thought these gentlemen were the same customers from Tuesday night who weren’t able to pay for their meal. Regardless, this is not how we treat our customers and as a result, the manager has been terminated and the restaurant [staff] has been retrained to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again,” reads the statement.
In further comments on the matter, Chipotle spokeswoman Laurie Schalow told The Daily Caller News Foundation that Ali had denied visiting the store on the day the earlier dine-and-dash took place.
“We did discover [Ali’s] previous twitter posts from a few years back as part of our investigation,” acknowledged Schalow. “We spoke with him and directly asked him if he had been in that restaurant on Tuesday night and he said he had not been there in weeks.”
“We had no choice but to take his word for it. The manager said she thought it was the same guys, but she said she couldn’t say with 100 percent certainty. It’s a very unfortunate situation,” she added.
Ali told the Star Tribune that the manger’s actions were “racist.” “She asked for proof of income as if I’m getting a loan,” he said.
Headlines (some with screenshots of the Chipotle manager) insinuating racial malice from the manager quickly spread on social media:
WATCH:
.png)
.png)
.png)
