OAK PARK (WWJ) – Residents in Oak Park are speaking out after a woman was arrested for allegedly trying to cash a fake check at a liquor store.
A small protest took place Thursday outside of Lighthouse Liquor near the corner of 9 Mile Rd. and Coolidge, with protestors chanting “Black Lives Matter” and holding signs.
Marcina Cole, organizer of Thursday’s protest, says her daughter, Marcina Barksdale, recently sold her car to someone on Craigslist and tried to cash the $8,900 check at Lighthouse.
Cole says her daughter “believed that in good faith the check was good.”
Turns out, it wasn’t, and the manager of the liquor store, Nash Kassab, called the police, who came out to the store and arrested Barksdale.
A small group of protestors gathered outside the store on Thursday afternoon. One woman was holding a sign that said "stop racist cops."
"Whether you live in Detroit or you're here in Oak Park, you gotta take a stand. Don't patronize Lighthouse Liquor," she said.
Cole says Barksdale was unfairly arrested and her daughter was the victim of an online scam. She says the store has targeted Black patrons for years, even alleging the cops and the shop work together to harass customers.
“Our lives matter. But apparently our lives don’t matter with the police, and it doesn’t matter with this store. I’m telling people today, do not shop at this Lighthouse Liquor store,” she said.
Kassab, however, tells WWJ’s Ryan Marshall he called the attorney’s office that allegedly issued the check, and they told him it was fake.”
“Well, we had the lady arrested, she came in and tried to cash a bad check, and got caught. She’s upset and now she’s trying to hurt our business,” he said.
He says his store does frequently cash checks, but he noticed it was fake.
“That’s how I make money. I want to cash the check, but I want it to be a good check,” he said. “Why would I turn away an $8,900 check that I can cash and make money on, if the check is good? Makes no sense. So even her saying that makes no sense.”
“As for racial profiling, my customers here are 90% Black,” Kassab said.
He says he's run the store since the 1990s and no one had ever accused him or other employees of being racist until this incident.
Oak Park Public Safety Director Steve Cooper says the department has a zero-tolerance approach for any kind of profiling.
He said Cole is “more than welcome to make whatever allegations she chooses and she and her daughter will have their proper day and time in court when they can come and actually dispute the charges filed against her.”
It was not immediately clear what charges Barksdale will be facing.
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