New York ? A school custodian who said he was wrongfully singled out for shoplifting solely because he is black applauded Macy’s anti-profiling agreement on Friday as a victory for civil rights.

“I do this for every color, white, black, green, yellow,” said Makan Magassa, 42. “This is not supposed to happen to anyone in this place right now. Color doesn’t matter.”

The agreement between Macy’s East Inc. and state Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer, filed Friday in U.S. District Court, said the retailer would make sure its security guards adhere to store policy prohibiting racial and ethnic profiling in detaining suspected shoplifters.

The retailer also agreed to pay $600,000 in damages and costs to the state. The settlement covers Macy’s stores in New York state.

Spitzer said at a news conference that the agreement would permit “individuals, regardless of skin color, to walk into a store and not feel like they are going to be followed, not feel they are going to be viewed suspiciously and not dealt with as second-class citizens.”

His probe into security practices at Macy’s began in July 2003, after receiving numerous complaints from shoppers who claimed they were questioned or searched solely because of their race.

Magassa, 42, a native of Mali now living in Manhattan, said he was in the women’s department of Macy’s famed Herald Square store last year shopping for Mother’s Day gifts for his wife and mother when he overheard a salesperson on the telephone referring to a “suspicious-looking black man.”

Magassa said he looked around and realized the employee was referring to him. He immediately called police from his cell phone.

The police arrived on the sales floor at about the same time as store security guards. After questioning him and finding no wrongdoing, he was told he was free to leave.

Macy's Flagship department store is in Herald Square in New York City. Macy's has agreed to make sure its security officers adhere to store policy and not use racial or ethnic profiling in combatting shoplifting, the retail chain confirmed last week.

He later filed a complaint with Spitzer’s office, one of the complaints that set off the probe, according to Natalie Williams, deputy chief of the state Civil Rights Bureau.

Williams said Magassa was offered hundreds of dollars by Macy’s, but he declined.

“Money doesn’t mean anything to me,” Magassa said. “It’s my civil rights that mean something.”

Some of the others who were detained may not have been innocent, said Spitzer. “The issue is not everyone was innocent, but that they (the store guards) zeroed in on an individual because of race.”

Makan Magassa, an immigrant from Mali, Africa, was determined to be a victim of Macy's profiling after he was deemed suspicious without provocation while shopping.

The settlement does not preclude the complainants from filing a civil lawsuit for possible damages.

Macy’s East, which has 29 stores in New York state, is a division of Federated Department Stores Inc., which is based in Cincinnati.

Under the agreement, Macy’s will take a number of steps to remedy the violations. They include permitting handcuffing of detainees only upon individualized assessment of risk of danger.

Spitzer stressed that Macy’s had cooperated with the investigation.

In a statement, Macy’s East said it “does not tolerate discrimination and expressly prohibits profiling.”