My Fox Philly
March 24, 2014
A man assaults an elderly woman in a Wal-Mart but now the store is under fire for not calling police in San Bernardino.
You can see surveillance video showing the man trying to take the necklace from the woman.
She fights back, the necklace ends up on the ground, and he runs away.
Linda Andrade, 68, says Wal-Mart managers then discouraged her from calling police.
“She says well if you want me to call the police… You’ll have to be here two or three hours,” recalled Andrade.
“The fact that we didn’t get the call on something like this when it’s a grand theft involving a senior. You know a senior is a protected class in our society and we should have gotten a response on this,” said, San Bernardino Police Department, Lt. Richard Lawhead.
Wal-Mart released a statement saying: “we are committed to providing our customers with a safe shopping environment. While we can’t always prevent crime from happening, we can definitely do a better job of how we respond in a situation like this. We have reached out to Ms. Andrade to apologize for how this was handled.”