SOMERS POINT, NJ – The New Jersey Attorney General’s office reported a Somers Point woman was charged by police for an altercation at the local Big Lots. Shakiya J. Duncan, 28, was charged on May 6 by the Somers Point Police with disorderly conduct and violating the emergency orders. Duncan was told several times by employees of Big Lots to wear a mask but refused to wear one. Duncan was standing very close to the woman in front of her in the checkout line, and when that woman asked her to please step back, Duncan allegedly screamed at her, cursed, and leaned forward to cough in the victim’s face.
Duncan said the reports are false and some white customer saw Duncan, a black woman cutting her in line to go back to another person she was shopping with.
“It’s really deformation of character. I’m not leaving my house without a mask nor will I ever cough in someone’s face under any circumstances,” she said. “A white customer was mad because she thought I jumped a line when I joined [a friend] at the front because we were together.”
Duncan even said Big Lots wrote a statement on her behalf in her defense, but she still made today’s statewide report by the Attorney General’s Office. Duncan claims she’s in training to become a correctional officer and would never do the things she was accused of doing.