Ah, The Holidays!

Words trigger violence. A fight inside Circle K in Bowling Green, Ohio becomes a national headline.

As we close out the year 2025, we take you to a story in Bowling Green, Ohio. The city is located 25 miles south of Toledo. The incident happened earlier this year. A Black woman traveling from South Carolina to Detroit went into the Circle K on East Wooster Street and was served a hot plate from a cashier.

It all started over fuel rewards and a minor disagreement where tempers flare up and the fists come flying. A handful of slurs were aimed at one another.

It becomes a national story because the woman was pregnant at the time and the cashier was soon arrested for battery, felonious assault. 

Deria Francis Stukes, 40 and Shannon Mary Walsh, 28 became the news in May 2025.

Now in December 2025, Stukes files a federal lawsuit against the suspect and the company's owner Alimentation Couche-Tard.

South Carolina woman moved from Detroit to become a pastor after an earlier rough life in the city. She had post traumatic disorder after a fight inside a Circle K in Ohio.

The dispute started over a routine request to void a gas transaction and add a Circle K rewards number, which escalated into a physical assault according to the lawsuit and surveillance video descriptions. Stukes alleges Walsh became hostile, used racial slurs (calling her "an animal" and "ghetto"), threw a jar of coins that struck her in the stomach, pulled her hair, slammed her into a cooler, and struck her repeatedly. Stukes claims this caused her to miscarry later. Walsh was arrested, charged with assault, pleaded no contest to negligent assault, was found guilty, and ordered to complete anger-management training.

Stukes told the junk food media she was eight weeks pregnant when this incident happened. The whole ordeal was witnessed in front of her two sons who are traumatized by the event.

Walsh on the other hand, from the social media she posted recently shows little remorse for her actions. The closest she came to sympathy was posting in November.

No remorse.

Nonetheless, the lawsuit alleges Circle K failed to provide a safe environment for customers and failed to hire, train and supervise its employees properly. Claims include assault, battery and negligence against both the employee and the company.

“This never should have happened. Rev. Francis was a pregnant mother simply trying to redeem a routine store loyalty reward. Something Circle K actively encourages its customers to do,” lead attorney Charles E. Boyk said. “Instead, she was violently attacked, subjected to racist slurs, and suffered the unimaginable loss of her unborn child. No family should ever experience such brutality, especially in a business that claims to serve the public.”

The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory damages, citing physical injuries, emotional distress and the loss of the pregnancy.