A suburban Atlanta father says what was meant to be a proud moment for his family’s small business turned into a painful and public lesson in discrimination when his disabled son, who uses a wheelchair, was ordered to leave their vending booth at Cumberland Mall during MLB All-Star Weekend in Atlanta.
“If my son can’t stay, then we can’t stay,” said Demond Crump Sr., who walked out of the mall with his wife and 32-year-old son, Demond Crump Jr., who has cerebral palsy. “We are leaving as well.”
The Henry County family was invited to participate in a special vendor showcase at the Cobb County mall after winning a Morehouse College pitch competition for their lifestyle brand, Reign. But as they were setting up shop on Friday, they say the general manager of the mall approached and told them their son had to go.
“We were setting up [and] we were told that my son couldn’t be there with us,” said Crump, according to Atlanta News First. “He needed to leave the mall. We were like, ‘huh? What do you mean?’ Like, he couldn’t be here as if he was in the way. We are his parents. We are able to watch him, see him, everything.”
Crump said he tried to reason with the manager, explaining that their son is an integral part of their company and always accompanies them. “I was talking to him man-to-man, father-to-father, like ‘man, this is my son you’re speaking of,’ and there was just no remorse,” he said.
Frustrated, the family packed up and left. Moments before exiting the mall, Crump recorded a Facebook video, later viewed by hundreds of thousands of times across various platforms. “I come to you with tears in my eyes,” he said in the post. The caption read in part: “Special needs people can’t come to the mall now?”
The Crumps say they were never given a clear reason at the time for why their son couldn’t stay, but they suspect it had to do with optics during the high-traffic All-Star Weekend. They were initially told one parent could leave with their son while the other stayed behind to run the table.
“You’re saying that my son has to leave. And he’s like, ‘Yes,’ and I’m like, ‘What is he doing?’ This is my child. This is my son. He’s a human being. At this point, I’m really shocked,” Crump recalled.
Crump also claims that when he questioned the general manager directly about the decision, the response was dismissive. “And I said, ‘Sir, do you know this is discrimination?’” Crump recalled. “He said, ‘File whatever complaint you want. You guys can leave.”
In a statement sent to local media, Cumberland Mall’s ownership group, Brookfield Properties, addressed the backlash: “This was a deeply unfortunate situation. We are very sorry for our poor communication causing this misunderstanding. We have reached out to Mr. Crump and welcome his family to return to our shopping center.”
But Crump flatly rejected that explanation. “This was not a misunderstanding,” he said. “So, we don’t have any desire to return to the mall. We have no plans on doing that.”
He said the general manager also called him later in the day to apologize, citing “a safety issue” and offering to relocate the family to a different part of the mall — an offer the Crumps declined.
“Now, all of a sudden, you want to make amends,” Crump said. “Doesn’t work that way.”
The family has since hired an attorney and is considering legal action.
When contacted by Atlanta Black Star, the Crump family had no comment other than to say that their attorney would be addressing the situation moving forward.
