Arrest made in Walmart racist intercom announcement

TURNERSVILLE, N.J. - March 19, 2010 (WPVI) -- Action News has learned there's been an arrest in connection with the racist announcement made over a South Jersey Walmart intercom.

Earlier Friday, Walmart issued a statement saying their probe determined that a specific customer may have been responsible.

It was last Sunday when someone in the Turnersville store got on the public address system and announced, "Attention, Walmart customers: All black people, leave the store now."

Police expect to release the arrest details Saturday.

The accused is expected to face charges of bias intimidation and harassment.

Walmart has turned over evidence to police.

Statement from Walmart:

We're appalled by this incident and are amazed that anyone could be so backward and mean-spirited in this day and age.

The words were incredibly hurtful to our customers--especially our African-American shoppers--and we regret that it happened more than we can say.

As soon as we learned of this, we immediately launched an internal investigation. At this point, we have no reason to believe that any Walmart associates were involved. Our investigation determined that a specific customer in the store may be responsible and we have turned this evidence over to the police. Additionally, we have already updated our intercom system in this store to prevent this from happening in the future. We are very sorry this happened and apologize to all of our customers and associates who had to listen to something so offensive.

LINK: http://www.walmartstores.com

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