Iowa City Woman Alleges Racism at Coralville Petco [VIDEO]

Chelsey Montgomery, a female dog trainer, claims she was in the Coralville Petco Wednesday night around 8 training her dog when she was unfairly asked to leave because she's black. She posted a video on her Facebook page that explains what she says happened. It has more than 92,000 views and more than 2,400 shares in 24 hours. In the video, she claims an employee of the store intercepted her right away. Montgomery says,

As soon as I walked through the door, the employee came up to me and said, 'You need to get out.' I said, 'Excuse me, why do I need to leave?' She said, 'We don't allow people of your kind here.'

Montgomery didn't leave the store after the employee told her to, and Coralville Police were called. Montgomery says she was told she cannot return to the store or she'll be charged with trespassing.

The full video from her Facebook page is below. Montgomery's accompanying comment says

Racism at my local Coralville Iowa Petco  I wouldn't normally encourage this but under these circumstances please share this video so as many people as possible can be made aware of this situation, thank you for all the kind words and support."

Montgomery said this wasn't the first time she's been asked to leave when doing a dog lesson and assumed the same thing was happening this time. However, this time she said it was different. She told KCRG, "I thought that until she said, 'fine n*****, I'm going to call the cops."

Coralville Police released their dispatch records to CBS2/FOX28. They showed that Petco had requested Montgomery be removed from the store because she was "soliciting her services and interrupting their dog training." Montgomery claims she was not trying to sell her dog training services in the Coralville Petco.

Petco's corporate office released this statement:

At Petco we take all guest concerns very seriously. We have been made aware of a customer complaint involving our Coralville location and are conducting a thorough investigation."

[via CBS 2 and KCRG]