Video of woman calling RCMP to Kelowna Hudson's Bay goes viral | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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Video of woman calling RCMP to Kelowna Hudson's Bay goes viral

Screenshot of a confrontation in Kelowna's Bay store.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK

A video of a recent confrontation at a customer service counter in Kelowna’s Hudson's Bay store has gone viral for, as many commenters have said, representing “everything wrong in the world today.”

In the video posted Wednesday that has had more than 45,000 views, a woman and a man exchange barbs after the woman huffs and puffs about waiting too long to be served.

By the woman’s own estimation in the brief clip, the conflict started when she got upset that the Bay employee was “slow” and she said “oh my God.”

A man who’s with the customer she’s serving asks if she has a problem and she tells him to shut up.

“You shut up, bitch,” another man replies.

“Shut up ... gay,” she says.

“Ah, so that’s your problem,” a man says.

“That's right, that’s my problem,” she says.

"So you're homophobic and rude?" he asks.

"Shut up," she says.

 

  Posted by Razvon Bachmeier on Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Then she walks away, asking for security. Shortly thereafter, she makes the decision to call 911 and can be heard making a complaint about how she had been treated claiming "verbal abuse." She said acknowledged the incident is being filmed, and said it's "all good."

Razvon Bachmeier posted the now-viral video, with the comment, “let’s make this go viral."

Bachmeier’s said in the Facebook post that the men in the clip were he and his boyfriend. He was being helped when the situation erupted, eventually prompting him to leave the Bay in near tears.

“Obviously things and tempers escalated quickly,” Bachmeier said.

“We could have improved on how we handled the situation as well. However the bottom line is this lady was upset she wasn’t being helped first, she felt entitled and was clearly homophobic. She then tried to twist the story and say she was assaulted/insulted first.”

By his account, everyone in the store saw that wasn’t the case.

He said he’s not sure whether the police went to the Bay or not, but he and his boyfriend were told by the store’s security and staff they could leave.

“We gave them our info and left. Shaken and in tears,” he said in the post.

“This should never be an acceptable way to treat anyone. Black, White, Gay, Straight. We all have seen these videos before, (usually) from a town or city far away. This was Kelowna... Canada... Let that sink in. We all deserve to be treated equally and with respect. I hope this goes viral and will show that homophobia, bigotry and entitlement are still very much alive.”

The post spread far and wide and the response has been supportive. For that, Bachmeier expressed thanks.

He also asked that people be kind to the woman in the video, noting that his point was not to incite anger but to highlight negativity.

 


To contact a reporter for this story, email Kathy Michaels or call 250-718-0428 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. 

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