With the Oscars just days away, TMZ reported on Saturday, February 16 that an employee at Milano Market, a NYC deli in Morningside Heights, near Ivy League school Columbia University, falsely accused Oscar winner Forest Whitaker of shoplifting, humiliating him with a public frisking.
“This was an upsetting incident given the fact that Forest did nothing more than walk into the deli,” a rep for Whitaker shared with TMZ. “Frisking individuals without proof/evidence is a violation of rights.”
In an intended apology, a Milano Deli rep said it did not believe the action was racially motivated. “While we can not delve into the employee’s mindset, we do not believe that he was racially motivated in his actions, simply misguided.”
Whitaker, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Idi Amin, one-time president of Uganda, in The Last King of Scotland, recently produced Fruitvale, the critically-acclaimed film on Oscar Grant directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan that won big at Sundance. Grant, who was killed by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle in Oakland, Calif. on New Year’s Day in 2009, is one of many young black men killed by white policemen.
Whitaker’s rep said that Whitaker, who is in New York filming, did not report the incident at the request of the offending employee who did not want to lose his job. –ronda racha penrice
