According to the Reuters, two black men got arrested at Starbucks, located in Philadelphia. According to the witness, who took video of the situation, the reason for arrests was:
“The police were called because these men hadn’t ordered anything”
Starbucks employees called 911 after two men refused to leave. The men were accused of trespassing. Police responded and arrested two men who were waiting for their friend inside Starbucks coffee shop.
Starbucks CEO apologized the incident, and promised to educate employees company wide, how to handle such situations. The CEO said in a statement:
“The video shot by customers is very hard to watch and the actions in it are not representative of our Starbucks mission and values,”
@Starbucks The police were called because these men hadn’t ordered anything. They were waiting for a friend to show up, who did as they were taken out in handcuffs for doing nothing. All the other white ppl are wondering why it’s never happened to us when we do the same thing. pic.twitter.com/0U4Pzs55Ci
— Melissa DePino (@missydepino) April 12, 2018
The customer captured the incident on video (see above) with mobile phone and shared it on Twitter. It is now viewed over ten million times. She wrote:
“The police were called because these men hadn’t ordered anything. They were waiting for a friend to show up, who did as they were taken out in handcuffs for doing nothing. All the other white ppl are wondering why it’s never happened to us when we do the same thing.”
The police commissioner defended the arrest saying his officers “did absolutely nothing wrong.”
The district attorney’s office told that the men were later released “because of lack of evidence” that a crime had been committed.
Outside the Starbucks today pic.twitter.com/vcr9QstkRT
— Melissa DePino (@missydepino) April 14, 2018
However, release and public apology from Starbucks was not enough for people.
The Guardian reported that the arrest of two black man sparked protest at the next day near the Starbucks shop where incident took place. Protesters went inside and chanted slogans such as, “A whole lot of racism, a whole lot of crap, Starbucks coffee is anti-black.”
Share this bizarre story now! What you think about thinks kind of treatment of customers? Are you going to boycott Starbucks or just get your cup of coffee as usual?