Starbucks apologized after a a Tempe, Arizona store asked police officer customers to leave because one of the patrons said they were uncomfortable with the officers’ presence.
Don't appreciate @Starbucks asking our #Tempe cops to leave your establishment on the #4thofjuly2019. Several of those cops are #veterans who fought for this country! #ZeroRespect pic.twitter.com/oGaDKhlYX3
— Tempe Officers Association (@ToaAz) July 5, 2019
“We would like to thank the public for the overwhelming support shown to our officers in the aftermath of this unfortunate incident,” the president of the Tempe Officers Association, Sergeant Rob Ferraro, said on Sunday.
“We are encouraged that Starbucks has reached out to our organization and to the Tempe Police Department to apologize and to further express their support of law enforcement.”
Six officers were standing together drinking coffee on the Fourth of July when a barista approached them and asked them to leave. There’s no word whether the barista will be disciplined or not. I hope this person doesn’t need to call 911 for help any time soon.
An executive vice president wrote to the Tempe police department about the incident: “They should have been welcomed and treated with dignity and the utmost respect by our partners (employees). Instead they were made to feel unwelcome and disrespected, which is completely unacceptable,” she wrote.
But some people on Twitter supported the barista’s decision to ask the cops to leave.
“I don’t feel safe around the police, ever. You need to work harder to earn our respect and trust,” and another wrote that perhaps the customer felt unsafe because of “a history of racial profiling and police brutality in Arizona.”
The media is likening this situation with an incident last year where two black men were loitering in a Philadelphia Starbucks and were asked to leave as they were not paying customers. Starbucks promptly apologized and closed all their stores for sensitivity training.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJClGJDskeI]
(Photo by Mairo Cinquetti/NurPhoto via Getty Images)