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HBO Actor Rob Brown Suing Macy's For Alleged Racial Profiling
By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Oct 25, 2013
Modified Oct 25, 2013
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By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Oct 25, 2013
Modified Oct 25, 2013
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Barney's isn't the only city retailer to take heat for racial profiling this week: actor Rob Brown, who stars on HBO series "Treme," says Macy's in Herald Square unjustly profiled and detained him in June, and now he's suing the company.
Brown, who got his break starring opposite Sean Connery in Finding Forrester and was recently in Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Don Jon, says he purchased sunglasses at the 34th Street flagship store on June 8th of this year; Brown claims he was then illegally searched, handcuffed and detained in a Macy's jail cell by undercover detectives, and when he tried to hand over his ID, he "was told that his identification was false and that he could not afford to make such an expensive purchase," the lawsuit reads.
Brown says he was released after an hour, but he's suing both Macy's and the NYPD for an undisclosed sum; the actor, who attended NYC private school Poly Prep and Amherst College, accuses the store of targeting him "based on (his) race and age as he was a young black American male." Macy's says they're investigating the charges.
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