Cops launch search for man using a KKK hood as a mask who was seen wandering around a Colorado grocery store
- Incident happened at City Market in Dillon shortly after noon on Thursday
- Fellow shoppers called the man ‘a racist’ and management asked him to leave the store
- Police arrived after the offender had left the premises and are now appealing for help to determine his identity
Police are trying to determine the identity of an ‘attention seeking’ man who wore a Klu Klux Klan hood into a Colorado grocery store on Thursday.
Customers at City Market in Dillon, west of Denver, were left stunned when the man strolled into the store and wandered down the aisles around 12.30pm.
Fellow shopper, Don Nechkash, snapped a photo of the offender, whose homemade hood had a swastika scrawled onto it.
‘I just couldn’t believe what I saw. It just blew me away,’ Nekash told KDVR Friday.
‘He was walking around and just very obviously looking for attention. It was blatantly obvious because he would pick up a product and walk around and kind of look at different people just waiting for someone to say something’.
Nekash added that a number of patrons inside the store approached the man and called him ‘a racist’.
Police are trying to determine the identity of an ‘attention seeking’ man who wore a Klu Klux Klan hood to a Colorado grocery store on Thursday
Meanwhile, a video taken by another shopper shows management confronting the man near the frozen foods section of the store.
The store manager told 9 NEWS that she asked the man to leave the premises.
Police were called to the scene, but arrived after the offender had taken off.
Dillon Police Chief Mark Heminghous says investigators will look through surveillance footage to=see if they can find the man’s vehicle and, possibly, its license plate number.
They are also asking for the public to come forward if they know the identity of the man.
‘He was walking around and just very obviously looking for attention’: The man was reportedly strolling up and down the aisles in a bid to be noticed
Fellow shoppers branded the man ‘a racist’, before management asked him to leave the store
‘Right now, they’re trying to identify him, contact him and take it from there. ‘Obviously, we take this kind of action very seriously,’ the police department stated.
Meanwhile, City Market released its own statement following the incident, saying: ‘We train our associates to embrace diversity and inclusion and to show respect to every customer and one another.
We ask our customers to respect these values as well when in our stores. Our store leaders are empowered to swiftly and respectfully address anyone who disregards these values, which includes blatant symbols of hate and intolerance.’
It’s not the first racist incident that has hit headlines in Dillon – a town of around 1,000 people, 95% of whom are white.
Last November, a man was arrested on misdemeanor charges of harassment and bias-motivated crime after making derogatory remarks about Mexicans.
The incident occurred at City Market in Dillon, west of Denver, on Thursday