For a South Carolina woman, a typical trip to the gas station ended up being life-altering after a Circle K clerk attacked her. Rev. Deria Francis Stukes, 40, was eight weeks pregnant when she stepped into a Circle K gas station in Bowling Green, Ohio, with her sons while traveling from South Carolina to Detroit for a conference. However, her interaction with former Circle K employee Shannon Walsh, 28, left her and her family traumatized, and she says the altercation caused her to lose her baby.
“Losing a child, whether it was a full-blown baby or just a small fetus, you still lost a child—and the way it happened, it was really, really traumatizing,” Stukes told WTVG 13 ABC News.
The incident took place on May 23, 2025, after Stukes asked Walsh if she could cancel her transaction so she could use her Circle K fuel rewards to save money. At which point, Stukes claims Walsh became hostile.
“She went on about why she couldn’t cancel it. She was like, ‘Well, you’re not going to get your money back right away.’ I wasn’t concerned about that. I was like, ‘That’s ok. I have other money on the card.’ She was like, ‘Well, it’s going to be on me if the money don’t come back.’ Like it just didn’t make sense to me,” Stukes recalled. “I was like, ‘Why are you being so nasty to me?’ She said something racial to her friend and then said something to a Caucasian male that was a standing in front of her who was standing in line,” Stukes said.
Video surveillance from the incident shows Walsh throwing a jar of change at Stukes, which allegedly hit her stomach before coming from behind the counter, grabbing her by her hair, and repeatedly punching her.
“They didn’t know what to do. I had to tell my son to go get my husband, like, why am I trying to defend myself? I told my 13-year-old go get your dad,” Stukes shared, referencing her sons who witnessed the altercation.
In a press release about the lawsuit, Charles Boyk, Stukes’ lawyer, claims that Walsh called the victim “an animal” and “ghetto.” Bowling Green Police later arrived at the scene and arrested Walsh, who ultimately pleaded no contest and was found guilty of assault charges in Bowling Green Municipal Court.
Now, the Stukes family is seeking $75,000 in damages in a recently filed lawsuit. The legal filing alleges that “Walsh, a Circle K employee acting within the scope of her employment, threw a jar of change that struck Rev. Francis’s stomach while she was eight weeks pregnant. When Rev. Francis attempted to leave, Walsh came out from behind the counter, grabbed her by the hair, slammed her into a drink cooler, and repeatedly struck her with a closed fist,” per Boyk’s statement.
“Circle K failed to maintain safe premises and failed to properly hire, train, or supervise staff, allowing an environment where violence and discrimination against customers could occur,” the statement added.
Boyk, the lead attorney, emphasized, “This never should have happened. Rev. Francis was a pregnant mother simply trying to redeem a routine store loyalty reward. Something Circle K actively encourages its customers to do. Instead, she was violently attacked, subjected to racist slurs, and suffered the unimaginable loss of her unborn child. No family should ever experience such brutality, especially in a business that claims to serve the public.”
