Deianeira Ford, a biracial 21-year-old woman from Zion, Illinois, visited a local Dairy Queen with her two small children last Wednesday. When her $5 order was wrong, she asked for a refund to which the store's owner Jim Crichton responded by allegedly verbally assaulting Ford and her children, the Washington Post reports.
In a post that's since been deleted by Facebook (though it's unclear exactly why), Ford detailed the alleged incident. After giving her back the $5, Crichton "called me and my children n******; he said I can go back to where I came from," Ford wrote. "He took out his flip phone and he said he would take a picture and put it on Facebook because he wants to show the world what kind of n****** he has to deal with. Then he shut the window and walked away," she told the Post.
She also said her 3-year-old daughter who's "a little sponge" asked her "Mommy, we n******?" When she asked for his name to file a report, he reportedly replied he was "Bill Clinton then said better yet I'm Donald Trump."
Ford then called the police from the Dairy Queen parking lot. The responding officer wrote later in a report Crichton "proudly admitted" to using the slur and said he "would be happy to go to jail over the issue," according to the Chicago Tribune. He also said he was "'fed up with black people.'" The officer noted Crichton used the N-word "freely to describe black people" in the store.
When contacted by the News-Sun the next day, Crichton denied the accusations. "It's 99 percent lies," he said. "Her order was confusing, and I told her, 'Here's your money back. This is so far blown out of proportion."
Two days after the alleged incident, the official Dairy Queen Facebook account informed those who'd complained on behalf of Ford that the Zion Dairy Queen location had "been closed until further notice." In a more recent Facebook update, Ford wrote Crichton had his license revoked and subsequently lost his franchise.
Ford's attorney continues to meet with people who've allegedly been treated similarly by Crichton, though no one has pressed charges officially yet. Black Lives Matter protestors and other local activists have been organized in front of the Dairy Queen since Saturday.
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