‘That poor kid’: Texas Woman says angry man ‘with red hat’ at H-E-B began yelling at her. Why did the worker kick HER out instead?
A woman had an incredibly strange encounter at an H-E-B after she noticed two children crying alone in the store. Confused, she tried to help them, only to be yelled at by a man and eventually kicked out of the store.
It started when @gardenheattx, a TikTok content creator based in Texas, went inside an H-E-B and saw her friend’s children sitting in a shopping cart. The children were crying, visibly shaken by an interaction they had with someone they did not know. @gardenheattx asked them questions, and they told her that a man “let them know” they needed to get out of the shopping cart. As she led them to find their mother, a man arrived.
Since posting on Oct. 19, her original video has generated 190,000 views. So how did H-E-B respond to the incident?
A man approaches @gardenheattx in her small town grocery
@gardenheattx asked the children a few questions about the man who had come by, including whether they had angered him in any way. They told her that they had not done anything and that he continuously yelled at them to get out of the shopping cart.
Then the man saw her with the children. “ The man sees me and he comes at me and he’s like, ‘you [are] raising such crappy [children],’” @gardenheattx said. “It was just vulgar, right? [He said] ’you need to raise him better, and you should be ashamed of yourself.’”
The woman told him that they were not actually her kids. She then asked if he had touched them in any way. The man continued to attack her verbally. @gardenheattx told her viewers, “ I said, ‘Are you sure you didn’t touch him? You’re coming at me pretty aggressively. I feel like you touched him.’ He’s like, ‘No, but he shouldn’t have been on there,’” referring to the shopping cart.
The man then told her that the child was an “embarrassment” to the community. That was when @gardenheattx noticed a few things about his clothes and general demeanor. The man was wearing a T-shirt honoring 9/11 and, according to her testimony, possibly had a “Make America Great Again” hat on. To her, it felt as though the man was racially targeting the children and her.
@gardenheattx lives in an incredibly small town in Texas. The day before, there had been a no king’s protest, which she imagined riled up many people in the surrounding area. She and the children are also not white, something she noted in her video.
@gardenheattx ♬ original sound – Gardenheat
An H-E-B employee tells her to leave
As the situation was happening, an H-E-B employee saw the commotion. @gardenheattx claims that the employee was only an “inch” away from the argument but stepped in later as things grew more heated. Despite the fact that the man was cursing at her, insulting her, and calling her names, the H-E-B employee told her that she needed to leave. The employee apparently did not tell the man the same thing.
At this time, @gardenheattx decided she wanted to file a police report. She told both men that she was interested in filing one because one of the younger children complained of having a hurt ankle and because of the escalated conflict.
The aggressive and combative man did not believe her, telling her that she should be “ashamed” of herself because of “her” children. The H-E-B employee apparently overheard this part of their conflict but continued to tell her that she needed to leave.
“ [The] H-E-B worker [told] me to leave the store. He [wasn’t] telling the guy to leave the store. He’s [only] telling me [that I need] to leave the store,” @gardenheattx said. “Everybody’s staring at me. I [was] the only dark one there. I [felt] embarrassed. I didn’t do anything wrong. I just wanted the kids to go back to their parents, and this guy was going insane.”
She insisted that she wanted to file a police report. The H-E-B employee let her know that if she truly wanted to file one, she would have to do so at customer service. He once again asked her to leave the area. So she started walking to the customer service desk to try to file one.
The man follows her to customer service
The man continued to insist that he did not touch her or the children. Despite this, @gardenheattx let him know that she intended to take the issue up with customer service.
She started to walk toward the front of the store and then noticed that the man was heading in the same direction.
@gardenheattx recounted, “ He goes, ‘They could pull the tapes and they can see, I didn’t touch you. I didn’t do [expletive] to you… I didn’t do [expletive] to that kid. I didn’t touch him.’ And I was like, ‘OK, fine, then let’s get it done [and speak to customer service]. He was still yelling at me. As we’re walking, he’s walking in front of me,’ [and] he says, ‘don’t you [expletive] follow me.’”
He accused her of “following” him despite her explaining that she was heading toward the customer service counter. He then said, “Don’t you follow me, I swear…” and trailed off. @gardenheattx asked if the man was threatening her. That was when he pushed a shopping cart directly into her.
She speaks to a manager, who does nothing
The TikToker told the man to walk away from where she was, indicating that she was only trying to go to customer service. She gave him a few moments to walk away before proceeding so as not to further escalate the situation.
From there, she made it to the customer service desk and reported the entire situation to H-E-B’s staff. Their response shocked her. They let her know that there was not much they could do about the situation. As the manager allegedly explained, “ [They] couldn’t do much because you know, the guy loves the store, and [@gardenheattx was the person who] didn’t wanna leave the store.”
@gardenheattx found the entire situation astounding. To her, the man believed he had the privilege to speak to her in an inappropriate manner and did not expect a response back.
As she explained, “ What it had to do was that this man had the arrogance this man had. The privilege in his mind was that he was allowed to talk to me like that and go off on me like that and do whatever he wanted to do to me and not think that I would say something back. I’m pretty sure when he heard me speak, he could not understand because I always get the, you sound like one of the good Mexicans.”
TikTok commenters express their frustration—is this an American issue?
When the man spoke to @gardenheattx in H-E-B, he did not necessarily say anything racially charged toward her. Despite this, @gardenheattx felt frightened and anxious about the encounter from a racialized perspective.
Many TikTok commenters noticed this as well, citing increasing hostility toward people of color in the United States as one reason why the situation felt perilous and dangerous.
“I’m viewing this from Australia and your situation confirms everything we are hearing about the United States,” said one commenter. “It must be frightening if you aren’t Republican white. So, so sorry you are going through this.”
Certain language the man used, like telling her that she should be “ashamed” of her children and assuming they were hers due to her sharing the children’s skin color, raised alarm bells for many commenters. Increasing tensions have also led many people to experience more microaggressions in common spaces, making certain areas in the U.S. feel more dangerous.
H-E-B responds
Many people questioned H-E-B’s response, asking why the store employee told her to leave and defended a “regular customer” instead of her. As she established in her video, the H-E-B she went to is also her regular spot for groceries. She had every right to be there.
“Why did the HEB ask you to leave and not the guy [that] was screaming at you! H-E-B, you need to check into this,” wrote one commenter.
H-E-B’s official TikTok account left a comment on her post saying, “We are concerned about your experience at our store and would like to make sure this is looked into. Do you mind sending us a DM with the store location and a good number that our team can reach out to you at?”
@gardenheattx replied, saying, “I sent a message, thank you so much for checking in.”
She eventually made a response video, letting her audience know how H-E-B handled the situation. H-E-B’s corporate team apparently got in touch with her local store and issued some changes to their policies and procedures.
She noticed an immediate change when walking around, with customers seeming “more comfortable.” The corporate team also let her know that they would retrain some of their employees.
The Mary Sue has reached out to @gardenheattx and H-E-B for comment.
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