Manager Fired After Pregnant Woman Accused of Shoplifting at Staples in Pineville

PINEVILLE, N.C. – Staples in Pineville has fired a manager after a pregnant customer was accused of shoplifting. The woman says she felt humiliated after the manager sent a police officer to question her.

With less than a month to go before giving birth to twins, Shirell Bates says she doesn’t get out much.

“I try not to leave the house unless I absolutely have to!” Bates says.

Friday she went to the Staples to buy school supplies for her five-year-old son.

As she was checking out, a police officer approached her.

“He said he wanted to speak with me. So I had to leave in the middle of my transaction, step aside, and he asked what was I concealing, what was under my shirt,” Bates explains.

She later found out a manager sent over the officer, who was already in the store, because she suspected Bates was shoplifting.

“First I kinda thought he was joking. So I answered, ‘Twins, that’s what I have under my shirt, that’s what I came in the store with.”

After that, she walked away but says the officer didn’t seem to believe her and came back.

“So in that case, to deflate the situation which was further escalating, I lifted my shirt a little bit, just to show my pregnant belly, like ‘No, it’s what I said it is under here,'” she says.

Bates says she felt humiliated.

“That just made me feel embarrassed, there were people in line, the store was going on about their day, and I’m having to prove myself in front of everyone,” she says.

Bates says she had to go and find the manager, who then apologized and refunded her money.

A spokesperson for Staples says the manager has been fired for not following protocol, writing in a statement, “..we want all our customers to feel welcome in our stores.. we would like to apologize to the customer as this was not the case in this instance.”