CO-HOSTS: Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Ed Bradley, Steve Kroft, Lesley
Stahl EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Don Hewitt


(Footage of outside of Dillard's store; shoppers inside Dillard's)

ED BRADLEY: (Voiceover) There's a good chance you or someone you know
has been to a Dillard's department store. But in the last few years,
Dillard's has lost millions of dollars in lawsuits brought by shoppers
who claim they were illegally harassed, beaten up or thrown out of the
store by off-duty police officers working as security guards.

(Photograph of beaten man)

Ms. DENISE ROBINSON: (Voiceover) Why would they treat a person like
this? Why were all these bruises? Why was the ribs broken.

All this force--was it necessary?

Officer GREG POWELL: Every call I responded to seemed to be on a person
of color.

Officer BYRON PIERCE: The majority of them, they were without any
foundation, without any merit.

MIKE WALLACE: I'm Mike Wallace.

MORLEY SAFER: I'm Morley Safer.

BRADLEY: I'm Ed Bradley.

STEVE KROFT: I'm Steve Kroft.

STAHL: I'm Lesley Stahl. Those stories and Andy Rooney, tonight on 60
MINUTES.

(Announcements)


CBS News SHOW: 60 MINUTES (7:00 PM ET) March 25, 2001, Sunday

HEADLINE: DILLARD'S; SHOPPERS AT DILLARD'S BRING LAWSUITS CLAIMING THEY
WERE BEATEN UP OR THROWN OUT OF ITS STORES BY OFF-DUTY POLICE OFFICERS
WORKING AS SECURITY GUARDS

ED BRADLEY, co-host:

Attorney General John Ashcroft has said one of his top priorities in his
new job is to end racial profiling by police officers. In that case, he
might want to take a look at the off-duty police officers working for
Dillard's, one of America's biggest retail chains. Despite 340 stores in
29 states and sales of $ 8 1/2 billion a year, the company has recently
lost millions of dollars in lawsuits--lawsuits brought by shoppers
claiming they were illegally harassed, beaten up or thrown out of its
stores by off-duty police officers working as security guards. And some
of those allegations have come not just from the store's customers, but
also from the officers themselves.

(Footage of Powell; Pierce walking beat in Dillard's)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Officers Greg Powell and Byron Pierce worked
through the '90s as Dillard's security guards in Overland Park, Kansas.
They say Dillard's staff pushed them to be too aggressive, especially
toward black and Latino customers.

Officer GREG POWELL: Every call I responded to seemed to be on a person
of color. And if we get there and find out it--you just have a black
person in your area, well, you know, 'Is there a problem?' 'Well, no,
they're just here.'

BRADLEY: Are you talking about a few isolated incidents, or did this
happen on a regular basis?

Off. POWELL: Oh, this was on a regular basis.

BRADLEY: And is--they were always on African-Americans?

Officer BYRON PIERCE: The majority of them, they were without any
foundation and without any merit.

(Footage of Pierce; Dillard's parking lot)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Officer Pierce said he himself was the target of
one of those security calls, when one Saturday Dillard's asked him to
work in plain clothes. He was walking around the store in a baseball
cap, white T-shirt and blue sweats when a sales clerk phoned for help.

Off. PIERCE: And the caller stated, 'There's a suspicious black man
walking around. He's wearing a red baseball cap, white T-shirt and blue
sweats.' And it dawned on me. I said, 'Well, you're talking to him. This
is security.' She said, 'Oh, I'm sorry.' And she hung up the phone.

BRADLEY: Had you done anything suspicious?

Off. PIERCE: Just walking around. Actually working and walking around.

BRADLEY: On duty.

Off. PIERCE: On duty, that's correct.

BRADLEY: Could they say that this was just a--this represents just a few
isolated incidents and it involved just a few low-level salespeople;
this is not Dillard's policy?

Off. PIERCE: I don't think this is--you know, i--is an isolated problem.

Off. POWELL: They didn't feel like they were wrong. I, in fact, informed
them that one day you're going to stop the wrong person and you're going
to get sued.

(Footage of newspaper article with headline reading Jury awards woman $
1.1 million; Douglass)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) And they were. In 1997, a federal jury awarded more
than a million dollars to Paula Hampton, who claimed that a Dillard's
security guard in Overland Park targeted and harassed her because she
was black. After that verdict, the police chief in Overland Park, John
Douglass, decided he had heard enough about what he called Dillard's
bigoted atmosphere and banned his officers from working there. What was
Dillard's response?

Chief JOHN DOUGLASS: Their stand was they had done nothing wrong and
that, you know, the current safeguards that they had in place were
sufficient.

BRADLEY: Were you surprised at their response?

Chief DOUGLASS: I was somewhat surprised.

BRADLEY: Today, is this ban still in effect? I mean, can your officers
work at Dillard's?

Chief DOUGLASS: No, sir. It's still in effect.

(Footage of Dillard's; court documents with excerpts highlighted:
"niggers" "jigaboos"; footage of Dillard's patrons)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Dillard's executives say they have an excellent
record--just a handful of complaints among millions of customers each
month. And they say their stores don't treat minorities any differently
than anyone else. But recently, seven Dillard's employees have testified
their district manager--a man who supervised 13 stores--commonly
referred to black shoppers as "niggers" and "jigaboos." And worse than
that, some people say that the company's overly aggressive security
guards have gone beyond insults to police brutality.

(Footage of Houston downtown; Dillard's; ambulances; street traffic;
emergency center; photo of Robinson in critical condition)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) On June 1st, 1994, Darryl Robinson approached the
customer service counter at Dillard's in Houston, Texas. Witnesses say
he was loud and abusive. Within minutes, store security guards had him
on the floor in handcuffs. An hour later, he was in critical condition
at a nearby hospital. Two days later, he was dead.

(Footage of church; church parishioners; Denise)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Robinson was supposed to have met his wife, Denise,
after church that evening. To this day she says no one has ever
explained to her just what took place at Dillard's.

Ms. DENISE ROBINSON: I would like to know the truth, what really
happened that night, from the time he walked in that door.

BRADLEY: And what has Dillard's said about this?

Ms. ROBINSON: They've never talked to me. They haven't called me. I know
one time that I did go there, they said that 'Our lawyers are now
handling it and we have'--you know, 'your lawyer can talk to my lawyer,'
but they basically just, you know, showed me out the door.

(Footage of hospital records with excerpts highlighted: "brain injury"
"cracked ribs" "bruises...lacerations")

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) According to hospital records, Robinson died with a
brain injury due to a lack of oxygen--as well as cracked ribs, a broken
sternum, and bruises and lacerations on his face and body.

Ms. ROBINSON: Why would they treat a person like this? Why were all
these bruises? Why was the ribs broken, you know? If--if w--all this
force was unnecessary. You know, was all this force necessary?

(Footage of Dillard's; Turck; Pulsifer; Bradley)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) What happened at Dillard's that night? James Turck
and Anthony Pulsifer, who worked there as handymen, say they witnessed
store security guards holding Darryl Robinson on the floor while a
Dillard's sales manager bound his legs with packing tape.

Mr. ANTHONY PULSIFER: He was on his belly. He had his hands taped around
his back. His legs were taped and they were brought together like you'd
hog-tie an animal.

BRADLEY: So you have one officer pushing him down and two other officers
pulling him in...

Mr. PULSIFER: Right. Trying...

BRADLEY: ...in different directions.

Mr. PULSIFER: He couldn't even move an inch.

BRADLEY: And he's hog-tied.

Mr. PULSIFER: And he's hog-tied.

(Footage of police tape)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Hog-tying, a restraining technique shown in this
police training tape, is forbidden by most police departments because it
can cause a prisoner to suffocate.

Mr. PULSIFER: When he started foaming at the mouth and it--you could
tell he was having a hard time breathing.

BRADLEY: When the officers saw this, did they do anything to help it?

Mr. JAMES TURCK: Well, one officer asked me to walk downstairs to get a
mask to put over his face.

BRADLEY: A mask?

Mr. TURCK: Yes.

BRADLEY: They wanted to put it over Darryl Robinson's face?

Mr. TURCK: Right. The white stuff was coming out of his mouth. And she
said, 'Well, I don't want him spitting on me, so let me get a mask.'

BRADLEY: But in your written police statement, you didn't say anything
about Darryl Robinson being hog-tied. You didn't say anything about him
foaming at the mouth. Why didn't you tell the police about that?

Mr. PULSIFER: I really didn't want to get too involved. And I wanted to
keep my job, 'cause it was real important to me at that time.

Mr. TURCK: And I didn't want to get too involved with it 'cause
Dillard's was wrong at that time.

BRADLEY: Your feeling was if you spoke against them, what would happen?

Mr. TURCK: I'd probably lose my job.

BRADLEY: What made you feel that way?

Mr. TURCK: 'Cause the next day they just--they just told us, 'Hey, don't
talk to nobody about this.'

(Footage of Dillard's; photo of Robinson; footage of Houston police
vehicles)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) In fact, the officers who restrained Robinson
didn't tell his family they'd hog-tied him and put a mask on him until
three years later, when they were questioned under oath about it. What
they did report was that Robinson was acting crazy in the store that
night, and that he fought them so hard they had to call on-duty police
for help. The Harris County medical examiner never questioned the
officers about their report, and concluded Robinson died of natural
causes--a heart attack.

(Footage of Robinson)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Denise Robinson never believed that.

Ms. ROBINSON: We knew that it wasn't what they were saying, but it's
what we had to go with because that's what was on the paper.

BRADLEY: There's no doubt in your mind that he was killed by the police.

Ms. ROBINSON: Yes.

BRADLEY: Police who were working at--at Dillard's.

Ms. ROBINSON: That's correct.

BRADLEY: So if you were to talk to the--to the head of--of Dillard's
department stores about this, what would you say to them?

Ms. ROBINSON: How could he let something like this go on in his stores?

Reverend EMMANUEL CLEAVER: There are enough complaints that have reached
the public's attention around the country that the Dillard's people
ought to be embarrassed. They ought to be ashamed.

(Footage of Reverend Cleaver)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Reverend Emmanuel Cleaver, a Methodist minister, is
the former mayor of Kansas City, Missouri. He says he heard complaints
about Dillard's for years, but didn't realize how widespread the
problems were until 1997, when he raised the subject at a meeting of the
National Conference of Black Mayors.

Rev. CLEAVER: Lo and behold, one of the mayors stood up and said, 'I was
roughed up in Dillard's in Illinois.' And when the other mayors heard
that, one by one they would say, 'Well, I've never had any personal
experience, but this happened in my town.' I realized we had a national
problem.

(Footage of National Conference of Black Mayors)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) The Mayors Conference passed a resolution
criticizing what it calls 'Dillard's tight-lipped hostility' towards
serious allegations of racism, and asking for a meeting with the
company's executives. Dillard's never responded.

Rev. CLEAVER: They will not reform. They don't believe they need to.
They don't believe that anybody can force them to do so.

(Footage of Dillard's; photo of Dillard; footage of statement)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) For 63 years, Dillard's department stores have been
run by William Dillard and his sons in Little Rock, Arkansas. They
declined our requests for an interview, but they did send us this
statement which reads in part, "State laws permit a retail store to stop
a person for investigation without proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Nevertheless, Dillard's realizes that honest mistakes can and do happen.
For those rare mistakes, Dillard's apologizes and routinely offers gift
certificates to demonstrate our sensitivity to this problem."

But around the country, Dillard's continues to face claims that its
stores harassed or abused persons of color, including three lawsuits
filed in the last two years--lawsuits representing 23 people. And since
Darryl Robinson's death, Dillard's security guards have shot and killed
three shoplifters at their stores.

(Photo of Montesinos with his family; Dillard's)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Then there's the case of Eli Montesinos. On New
Year's Day, 1997, Montesinos was shopping with his wife, Susana, their
three young daughters and a niece in San Antonio, Texas. They had only
been in Dillard's a few minutes when they were told the store was
closing, and they would have to exit at the opposite end of the
building.

You wanted to go out the other exit because that's where your car was
parked?

Ms. SUSANA MONTESINOS: Yes.

(Photo of Montesinos; Smith)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) As Eli Montesinos passed through the exit, he
cursed in front of the Dillard's security guard, off-duty San Antonio
Police Officer James Smith. Testifying in a videotaped deposition, Smith
said he had no choice but to respond.

Officer JAMES SMITH: He violated the penal code statute 4201: disorderly
conduct.

Unidentified Attorney: So when he said 'This is bullsh(censored),'
you're saying he violated the law?

Mr. SMITH: Sure did.

(Footage of Susana; Bradley)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) According to Susana Montesinos, Smith then pushed
her husband through the doorway. Montesinos pushed him back. And then,
she says, Smith backed her husband into a corner and put him in a choke
hold.

Ms. MONTESINOS: And then Smith took the--the other hand like this...

BRADLEY: So he--he had his one arm around your husband's neck?

Ms. MONTESINOS: Mm-hmm, yes.

BRADLEY: And with his other hand, was pulling that arm?

Ms. MONTESINOS: Yes. And I'm screaming, and my daughters, too. And I
know, I saw he cannot breathe. And they don't help him.

(Footage of ambulance; officer's car; people on sidewalk)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Eli Montesinos collapsed there in front of his
family, and died six days later. But Dillard's maintains Smith was only
doing his duty.

Dillard's says that they're certain that Officer Smith did nothing
wrong. That...

Ms. MONTESINOS: He killed my husband. That is wrong.

BRADLEY: He says he was just defending himself.

Ms. MONTESINOS: Defending for what? For talking?

(Footage of Smith; medical records with excerpts highlighted:
"...hemorrhage...fracture...")

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Smith says he never touched Montesinos' neck, that,
in fact, Montesinos put him in a choke hold and beat him with his own
baton. But medical records show that Montesinos died with hemorrhages
and fractures in his throat, due to compression of the neck, while Smith
left the scene with barely a mark on him.

Unidentified Attorney: Do you have any regrets at all concerning
anything that you did on January the 1st?

Mr. SMITH: No, sir.

Unidentified Attorney: You don't feel there's any part of your conduct
that you would in any way change?

Mr. SMITH: No, sir.

(Footage of Smith being questioned by attorney; Susana)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Although a grand jury decided not to bring criminal
charges against Smith, Dillard's settled a lawsuit with Susana
Montesinos for more than a million dollars, after 11 witnesses supported
her side of the story.

(Footage of Robinson)

BRADLEY: (Voiceover) But in Houston, Denise Robinson is still fighting
Dillard's in a lawsuit she filed after her husband, Darryl, died. For
seven years, the company argued that Robinson's autopsy report proves he
died from a heart attack, and not from anything Dillard's security
guards did to him.

But when we called the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office, they
told us Robinson's original autopsy report was wrong. In 1998, a new
chief coroner determined that Robinson had been asphyxiated while he was
being restrained. That coroner says she told Dillard's attorneys about
her new autopsy findings nearly three years ago. But Dillard's never
told Denise Robinson about them.

Ms. ROBINSON: This is the first I've heard of it.

BRADLEY: So no one contacted you to say...

Ms. ROBINSON: No.

BRADLEY: ...that your husband was actually asphyxiated and did not die
of a heart attack?

Ms. ROBINSON: No.

BRADLEY: Denise Robinson is scheduled to go to trial against Dillard's
the first week in April. Meanwhile, the US Justice Department has
decided not to pursue federal charges against Officer John Smith for the
death of Eli Montesinos. And in response to complaints, Dillard's
executives say they have a new training tape for their employees, which,
they say, should discourage racial profiling in their stores.







UPDATE OF PREVIOUS STORY

CBS News SHOW: 60 MINUTES (7:00 PM ET) April 8, 2001, Sunday

ANCHORS: STEVE KROFT

STEVE KROFT, co-host:

Now an update. In response to the story we ran two weeks ago about
evidence of racial profiling and police brutality at Dillard's
department stores, Dillard's has decided to pull advertising from CBS
affiliates around the country. But that didn't deter our affiliate in
Houston, KHOU, from pursuing the story further. Last week KHOU ran three
more pieces about groups of people who claim they were discriminated
against or harassed because of their race at Dillard's in the Houston
area.