White CVS manager #CouponCarl calls cops on Black customer

Jul 15, 2018

The latest episode in the hit series White people angry at Black people living while Black stars a CVS employee the Internet has dubbed #CouponCarl

“Carl,” whose real name is Morry Matson, called the Chicago police after Camilla Hudson, a Black woman, showed up to a CVS store in Chicago’s Edgewater area with a coupon he didn’t recognize, according to the Chicago Sun Times.

All Hudson, 53, wanted to do was to buy an incontinence item in peace. Instead, the manager decided to spread her business in a call to 9-1-1 being broadcast on video and Facebook post that have gone viral.

Matson, a delegate for President Trump during his 2016 White House campaign and candidate for alderman, doesn’t even garner Hudson the respect to refer to her as a human in his call to the authorities.

“It’s a female,” Matson is heard saying during the call, his hand visibly shaking.

Hudson is off camera but heard on the video helping Matson out with the details he’s giving to police.

“I have ID and will share it,” she is heard saying, also confirming that her last name is Hudson, “like the river.”

Hudson told Block Club Chicago that the incident seems to have had an effect on people around the country.

“I think it’s resonating because we see and we hear these things and even though for me, as a black woman, I know this is real, you’re never really expecting it,” she told the website. “In Charlottesville (Va.), that’s where you expect these things to happen, not when you turn randomly into the CVS at 11:30 p.m.”

Hudson shared the video on Facebook on Saturday.

She is quoted as saying in the Daily Mail that she was trying to use a CVS coupon for a free incontinence item at the store on North Broadway in Chicago. The coupon depicted in a photo in the Daily Mail indicates it expires in December of this year.

“I stopped in to make a purchase using a coupon mailed to me by the product manufacturer, as replacement for problematic/defective product,” Hudson said in her Facebook post. “The manager on duty (Matson) said that he’d never seen a coupon like the one I had and said that he thought that it was fraudulent,” she said.

Hudson says she asked Matson for his name and title and at this point, he became “agitated and rude,” she wrote. She pulled out her mobile phone to begin recording the incident, and Matson ran to the back of the store and slammed a door, she said.

The situation needlessly escalates

A second manager approached Hudson and told her she should leave the store because police had been called.

Three tactical unit officers arrived and after having a “conversation” with them, she left the store, she wrote. “Life in these United States. Aargh,” Hudson posted.

Chicago police confirmed to Block Club Chicago that they responded to a call late Friday night regarding an alleged “assault in progress.” No police report was made.

CVS administrators have since contacted Hudson and apologized.

CVS spokesman Mike DeAngelis told the Sun Times that its region director contacted Hudson as soon as it learned of the incident.

“CVS has begun an investigation and we will take any corrective action that is warranted to prevent it from happening again,” DeAngelis said. “CVS Pharmacy does not tolerate any practices that discriminate against any customer and we are committed to maintaining a welcoming and diverse environment in our stores.”