The clerk, Christopher Martin, 19, said he had quickly recognized that the $20 bill that Mr. Floyd used to buy cigarettes at the Cup Foods convenience store on May 25 appeared to be fake. At the urging of a manager, Mr. Martin twice went outside to Mr. Floyd’s car and asked him to come inside the store to pay for the cigarettes or talk with the manager. Mr. Martin said he thought Mr. Floyd, unlike a friend of Mr. Floyd’s who had tried to use a fake bill earlier that day, had not realized that the bill was fake. “I thought I’d be doing him a favor” by accepting it, Mr. Martin said. He said the store’s policy at the time was that clerks who accepted a fake bill had to pay to replace it themselves.

Source: New York Times March 31, 2021 17:48 UTC