Walmart: Sorry We Refused to Make Police Officer's Cake

Cop's daughter says bakery employee called design racist
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 26, 2016 5:03 PM CDT
Walmart: Sorry We Refused to Make Police Officer's Cake
Persons walk in and out of a Walmart store, Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Dallas.   (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Walmart has apologized after employees at a Georgia store refused to make a retirement cake for a police officer. The officer's daughter told radio host Todd Starnes that she wanted the cake to feature a black and white American flag with a blue stripe added in to symbolize the police force, and that when an employee said no one felt comfortable decorating the cake that way because it "could be perceived as racist," the daughter suggested a simple blue line on a background of chocolate frosting—which the employee said she also didn't "feel comfortable" with. (However, a photo provided to Starnes of the cake that was ultimately completed shows the blue line on black frosting surrounded by the words, "Blue Lives Matter.")

A family friend and fellow police officer posted about the incident on Facebook Thursday, and then on Saturday posted that the manager of the Walmart had reached out, apologized, and offered to make the cake himself, free of charge, after the post went viral, the Macon Telegraph reports. That's the cake pictured in a photo provided to Starnes; the cop's daughter notes that since no employees would agree to decorate it, the manager decorated it himself and it looks "terrible. It doesn’t look professional." A Walmart spokesperson confirmed a "misstep" to Starnes, though he wouldn't say whether an employee had called the cake racist: "I can confirm an associate made a mistake that has since been corrected for the customer," he said. The family friend says the daughter eventually had a cake made at Kroger for the party. (More Walmart stories.)

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