When the Personal is Political

Michael Mangum didn’t win $4.4 million for ‘shopping while black’

In 2019 the Oregon state legislature passed a law allowing citizens to sue if someone unjustifiably called the police on them. The black news media cheered.

“Put the phone down,” advised blavity.com. “If Oregon’s white residents call the police on Black people for no reason, they might have to come out of pocket.”

Under ORS 30.845, a person could sue for damages against someone who knowingly calls the police on them with the intent to infringe on their freedom or cause trouble for them. The plaintiff could recover special damages for emotional distress, or statutory damages of $250 against each person who wronged them or punitive damages. The suit could be brought in Small Claims Court.

Now the reality: Last month, Michael Mangum walked out of Multnomah County Circuit Court with a $4.4 million judgment against Wal-Mart after an employee falsely accused him of a crime and called the police.

Mangum is black, and the now ex-employee is white.

News of the verdict went worldwide but focused on the “shopping while black” angle.

Except, it wasn’t a case of shopping while black.

The letter of the new law came to life. It was a case of malicious summoning.

On March 26, 2020 Mangum, then 59, walked into the Walmart store in Wood Village intending to buy a light bulb for his refrigerator. He studied the selection of light bulbs, checking to make sure he had the right size. Meanwhile, Joe Williams, a Walmart loss prevention employee was checking out Mangum.

Mangum noticed the employee scrutinizing him and objected, believing he was being racially profiled.

The two men exchanged words, and Mangum captured part of the encounter on video. Williams told him to leave the store, or he would call the police and report that a customer had threatened him.

When Williams called the non-emergency dispatch for the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Department, he acknowledged that the customer wasn’t acting violent or appeared to be drunk or high. But the customer had “flipped out” and was refusing to exit the store.

Sheriff’s deputies arrived and declined to take action against Mangum. They didn’t trust Williams’ version of events, which kept changing, and he had made exaggerated reports to police previously on other calls.

The next day, sheriff’s Sgt. Bryan White and a deputy visited the store and spoke with the manager and assistant manager. White told them that sheriff’s deputies had noticed Williams’ history of reporting dangerous situations that didn’t actually happen. (Williams continued working at Walmart and was fired four months later after he mishandled $35 worth of store property.)

Evidence like that led to the unanimous verdict against Walmart, said presiding juror Frank Moscow.

“What the jury focused on was very, very clear after multiple days of testimony. … This guy has a track record of inappropriately calling the police for no good reason,” he said.

“Nobody claimed that there was systemic discrimination at Walmart. Plaintiff had been shopping there for 12 to 13 years. He never claimed that he was discriminated against at other times,” Moscow added.

There also was compelling testimony from a sheriff’s deputy who described what goes into answering a call of potential violence – lights and sirens, speeding through traffic, putting the public at risk, a misuse of police time when there could be a real crime going on elsewhere.

Moscow considered the verdict a “net plus for law enforcement. … They (sheriff’s deputies) don’t want to be involved in this stuff. It’s a waste of time.”

Before they began their deliberations, Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Souede instructed the jury to read the new law on malicious summoning.

“The judge was very clear. You have to rule on this and this alone…,” Moscow said.

“It wouldn’t have made any difference if Mangum was white.”

The verdict was 12-0 in favor of Mangum, but the jury’s vote to award damages at $4.4 million was 10-2. Only nine votes were needed on damages so the amount prevailed.

Moscow was one of the dissenters.

“I thought the award was too high given the facts of the case,” he said.

One of the things that may have worked against Walmart was that Mangum was older, and he had an established work background as a drug and gang counselor. His opponent was a corporation that is not generally beloved or respected in Multnomah County.

Then, of course, there was Mangum’s attorney – Gregory Kafoury.

“Largest Race Discrimination Verdict in Oregon History,” was the press release posted on kafourymcdougal.com.

“Kafoury is a very good attorney,” said Moscow, calling the press release “great marketing … but that is not what the judge asked us to rule on.”

To Kafoury it was a race discrimination case “because my guy knew in a heartbeat he was being watched because he is black.”

He draws a distinction between what happened to Mangum and what happened to state Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Happy Valley), who sponsored the legislative bill leading to the law against malicious summoning.

In 2018 Bynum was canvassing voters in a Clackamas County neighborhood when a woman called police and reported her as suspicious; it looked like she was casing the neighborhood, and there had been burglaries.

A sheriff’s deputy arrived. He and Bynum ended up smiling and taking a selfie. He put her in touch with the woman who had called police. Bynum told her that given the history between blacks and the police, the call could have endangered her life. The woman apologized.

The following legislative session, Bynum introduced House Bill 3216 creating the malicious summoning law. It passed unanimously in the House and received only one “no” vote in the Senate from now-retired Sen. Alan Olsen (R-Canby), who was concerned that it would discourage people from reporting crime and make communities less safe.

Kafoury noted that if Bynum’s bill had been in effect while she was canvassing the neighborhood, she wouldn’t have had a case because the woman who called the police did so in good faith.

Was the Walmart case how Bynum envisioned her law being used?

“I think the issue here is examining why a person has raised suspicions and the actions they take to remedy them. In my case, the woman watched me for 45 minutes… .”

The same neighborhood had been canvassed by Bynum’s colleagues at least three times in the prior seven days before she visited.

“Our actions were the same, but our appearances were different. The person could have called a neighbor instead of endangering my life with a police call. Or she could have simply talked with me.”

Bynum owns four McDonald’s restaurants. As a business owner, she said police are to be used “for protecting the public and businesses from actual acts of crime –  not simply (against someone) existing in public spaces.”

One of her colleagues, now-retired state Rep. Jeff Barker (D-Aloha) was a Portland police officer. When he went door-to-door during a campaign, more than once he had someone ask him what he was up to. But nobody ever called the cops on him. He agrees with Bynum that her constituent called the police because they saw a black woman in their neighborhood they didn’t recognize.

By making this a civil, rather than criminal, matter Barker said the reasoning was to allow a black person some remedy for being “suspicious” all the time and having the police called when there was no other reason to be suspicious.

But he added, “I was dispatched to hundreds if not thousands of ‘suspicious activity’ calls where there was – after a brief investigation – no crime being committed. But sometimes there was a crime, or a potential crime was prevented.”

With a $4.4 million damage award receiving widespread publicity, will malicious-summoning become a new trend in lawsuits?

Kafoury doubts it.

This case was unique and had several perfect elements, he said – a sympathetic plaintiff, persuasive witnesses including “the greatest cop,” and “the most arrogant, stupid and biggest company.”

Portland Attorney Clarence M. Belnavis, representing Walmart and Williams, declined to comment.

It’s not surprising the media seized on the “shopping while black” angle. Lawsuits related to racial discrimination in commercial businesses have become more common – “drinking coffee while black,” “staying in a hotel while black,” “working while black.” The businesses have resources that can be tapped for damages.

Mangum’s son, Michael Mangum, Jr. sued The Kroger Co., for $2 million for racial discrimination after working more than four years as a produce clerk at a Portland-area Fred Meyer Store. Mangum Jr. alleged that his manager (who was Vietnamese) made racist comments – for example, saying “Your mom is here” when a black woman would enter the store.

After reporting several such incidents, Mangum Jr. was fired. He filed suit on June 10, 2020. Four months later, the case was closed with no record of disposition. Neither his attorney, Jeff Napoli, nor Kroger’s attorney returned calls.

Jayana Rushing, a Portland woman who won a child support lien against Mangum Jr., is suing Ross Dress for Less after an incident in 2020 at the Cascade Station store where she said employees accused her of a prior theft and told her she was trespassing. Kafoury is also her attorney, although he didn’t immediately recognize the case.

“Is that one of mine?” he asked. “I have a lot of ‘shopping while black’ cases.”

It seems like there could be an opportunity for dishonest actors to twist “shopping while black” into a “summoning police while black” scenario.

Kafoury considers that possibility absurd.

“Not many people take these cases … I have 400 clients,” he said.

So there will be no new trend “scheming while black?”

“The idea that this is a social problem is spitting in a hurricane,”  Kafoury said.