- An employee at a Ralphs supermarket in downtown Los Angeles was suspended for five days after an altercation on July 15.
- The employee confronted a man for wearing a mask at the store. The man refused and rammed her with a shopping cart. The employee pepper-sprayed the man and called police, according to CBS Los Angeles.
- “I looked down and there was a guy yelling at someone, and suddenly you see him, you know, take the handles of his car and try to ram this woman,” the witness told CBSLA.
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A California supermarket worker was suspended after peppering a man who refused to wear a face mask and allegedly rammed it with a shopping cart.
CBS Los Angeles reported that the employee confronted the man on July 15 at the Ralphs grocery store in downtown Los Angeles and told him he had to wear a mask or leave the establishment, a guideline required by Los Angeles County. .
The man hit the employee with a shopping cart, and in response “she sprayed him with pepper and called the police,” according to the report. The incident was recorded on a cell phone video.
A witness told the store that they saw the man causing a commotion in the store.
“There was a guy yelling at someone, and suddenly you see him, you know, he takes the handles of his car and just tries to ram this woman,” the witness told CBSLA.
The man was taken to the local hospital and it is unclear whether he will face charges, according to the report.
“The associate was suspended for five days for failing to follow company guidelines for responding to customers who were not wearing a face mask and were not following de-escalation procedures, which could have prevented the incident,” said a spokesman for the company, according to the CBSLA report.
Ralphs announced on July 22 that all store locations would require customers to wear face covers only with “associates who continue to wear masks.”
“We are taking this additional step now because we recognize that additional precautions are needed to protect our country,” the company said in a statement on its site.
