Pressing Charges On Walgreens For Leaving Black Neighborhoods

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:01]I want to read something to you all.

[00:00:03]Walgreens to close location amid theft and violence concerns. Walgreens decision to shutter its store in Chicago's Shatam neighborhood has elicited a major response from elected officials from the southside community.

[00:00:17]For one former customer, Denitra Gardner, weekly access to Walgreens pharmacy is a key to her husband's health. Years he's had this medication.

[00:00:26]And to have the rug pulled from under you for Michelle Tomkins, another shopper. Seeing another Chicago Walgreens clothes means more drive time to pick up her son's medicine. It makes it much harder for me to get the insulin my son needs and those vital resources.

[00:00:40]Residents learn the Walgreens on Cottage Grove Avenue will close in one month, leaving a void and feelings of abandonment from the community. We are not here to beg Walgreens. We are saying that this is the wrong decision. And in my opinion, this is a corporate crime.

[00:00:56]In a statement to NBC Chicago, this is the part we need to focus on. Walgreens said it's leases up and the store has experienced significantly higher levels of theft and violence than other locations, saying while this was not an easy decision, safety must remain our top priority. We do need Walgreens.

[00:01:19]We do need Walgreens to give us a workable solution. The closest Walgreens is over a mile away on East 87th Street and prescriptions from the Chatham location will be sent there for now. So that in and of itself is a good compromise. They're not just completely leaving y'all out to drive. Your prescriptions are not abandoned. They are in another Walgreens that as stated by one person in the community, you got to drive a little bit further, too. AND I'VE BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS THAT WAS GOING TO be the end result. While you got these dumbass [ __ ] running around telling y'all, "Oh, hey, I'm perfectly fine with you stealing. Oh, hey, steal more. Oh, hey, go out there and show these businesses that you're very upset with them. Oh, hey, go show everybody that you as the consumer are the person responsible for how they get their paychecks. So, you should be doing this to prove A POINT." I TOLD Y'ALL the more it happens the more the company's going to check the books and say h I don't think we need to be here. H I don't think this is serviceable to these EMPLOYEES AND OUR STOCK AND OUR MONEY.

[00:02:24]LET'S PACK UP AND JUST SHUT THIS PLACE DOWN and only have one location or fewer locations farther away from all these people in the hopes that the theft and the violence shrinks. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But it's an effort to do something so that these corporations can continue doing what? Making money.

[00:02:44]It's a tried andrue business tactic that has existed for a long time and will continue the longer dumb people promote and advocate for something for others to do while they themselves don't do it.

[00:03:00]Hassan Parker. Why do I say this? It's because what I just told you is the reasonable expectation for a business if they're constantly being robbed.

[00:03:14]But now we're supposedly supposed to sit here and think that Walgreens should face some form of a charge for prioritizing their business instead of the random people who don't want to do anything about [ __ ] going into a store and stealing.

[00:03:33]Walgreens should be charged with firstderee corporate abandonment.

[00:03:37]>> No, because you are not being abandoned.

[00:03:41]They openly told you, "Hey, all of your medications are going to another Walgreens location. You have not been abandoned. You have just lost access to a [ __ ] store because people in your community keep doing things to cause that to happen. So, the first step needs to be you addressing that, not you addressing Walgreens.

[00:04:05]>> It should be a crime. The way they're treating our elders >> is not a crime. It's a business choice.

[00:04:10]They are looking at the books and they're deciding the time for us to continue losing money is no longer. The time for us dealing with people breaking into stores and I guess maybe threatening the employees or threaten the the building in general. The time for that is over and your ability to just sit there and not address that point. Goddamn, you missing it to the highest degree and the highest order.

[00:04:36]>> It should be a crime the way they're treating our families.

[00:04:38]>> Yes. To treat your families so bad by restricting your access to get to a easy Walgreens and now having you spend more gas, go somewhere else. Now, that's unfortunate. Let me not sit here and act koi. That's very unfortunate. But your stupid ass is ignoring one piece of the puzzle is that they didn't just do this off a whim. They told you they lease up.

[00:05:03]And instead of looking at it and negotiating terms for a new lease, they said, "You know what? We keep getting robbed. We keep getting [ __ ] stolen. It keeps happening at this location. Let's pack up." And you know what's going to happen? It might trickle down to the other location. And then when the lease is up on that one, they may look at that and they may look at all the circumstances around that and they might pack up another Walgreens. And now all these people who are relying on a Walgreens pharmacy, they're going to lose another store. They're going to lose another piece of access to medicine, insulin, benadryil, pills, VIAGRA, ALL OF IT. They're going to lose that. and how quick that they could get it from a convenient location such as a Walgreens because you stupid [ __ ] who don't want to address the problem will instead get mad when nobody wants to be around your ass anymore. It's simple. Find a way to circumvent the dumb ideas promoted on social media by people who live in luxury telling other people to steal and then find the individuals who are stealing and arrest them.

[00:06:11]And then make sure to keep your [ __ ] community safe so that people and businesses can stay instead of just packing up, instead of just leaving you high and dry, instead of just making it to where you got to travel further, because that's the outcome. THAT'S ALWAYS GOING TO BE THE OUTCOME. Because I'm sorry to all the people who are in this crowd. To the little kid right there holding that sign. To the little kid right there in the little hoodie.

[00:06:39]But these companies don't give a [ __ ] about you. They give a [ __ ] about your parents' money. And when you doing something to cost their money, they going to make a business decision because they don't care about you. They care about your money. And if they not get that money or if they seeing they stock go away, if they seeing their inventory go down and they not even get no money out of it, it's time to go. So maybe next time y'all want to hold a council meeting, little town hall, maybe maybe just maybe we could consider targeting the real issue instead of pretending that a store that is constantly getting stolen from picking up shop and leaving is somehow the bigger issue. It is not. And shame on this [ __ ] for even attempting that.

[00:07:20]>> No.

[00:07:21]>> Would you um steal from the Louv?

[00:07:25]>> Yes. I would not be logistically capable of executing such a fact, but would I cheer on every news story of people that I see doing it? Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:07:36]>> Yeah. I I think it's cool. We got to we got to get back to cool crimes like that, like, you know, bank robberies, right? Stealing uh stealing priceless artifacts, things of that nature. I feel like that's way cooler than the 7,000th new cryptocurrency scheme that people are engaging in. And if you just so happen to disagree with me that it's okay to steal, it's perfectly fine to steal, okay? Can I come rob you? Because it's always convenient for these types of people where you sit up there in your little fancy little chairs or you sit in your little car and you have more than the next person and you telling the next person who doesn't have as much as you to go rob somebody. But then if they come rob you, it's the problem. If they come take from you, it's the issue. If they come steal your [ __ ] it's the problem. No, no, no, no, no, no. I should be able to take from you and all these other people cuz I don't have everything. And I'm looking at that shirt you got on right now and I'm thinking, I want that. You see, I I got this damn Pokemon game, but I ain't got no Game Boy playing on it. I think one of you [ __ ] got a Game Boy. I might come up you out there. I don't care if that's from your childhood. I don't care if you need that for your dying son who's got leukemia and that's the only joy he's got in his life. I want it. You are more fortunate than me. You have more than me and I want that. No. Well, you need to have that energy for how you don't want to be stolen from to these goddamn stores cuz these stores get stolen from and they going to pack up shop. And if you can't recognize the downfall of a consequence that exists after you steal from them multiple times, then [ __ ] it. [ __ ] the dying grandfather who needs those pills to last a little bit longer. [ __ ] the diabetic son that needs the insulin.

[00:09:26]Y'all don't care about the effects and who that will affect because you want to catch a lick. So l you caught