Disgusting Video Of Two Black Men Arrested At A Starbucks For Sitting While Black Sparks Outrage And Backlash Against The Coffee Company
Video has surfaced of two Black men who were at a Starbucks and apparently arrested for being Black.
It all went down in Philadelphia where the men were handcuffed because, according to a Twitter user who posted the video, they didn’t order anything as they were waiting on a third friend to show up.
"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," the Twitter user writes. "All the other white [people] are wondering why it's never happened to us when we do the same thing.”
Other users of the social media platform tweeted at Starbucks and called them out for allowing employees who work there to racial profile. Starbucks has responded and says they’re looking into the incident. They also issued an apology to the men who were arrested.
“We apologize to the two individuals and our customers and are disappointed this led to an arrest,” the statement reads. “We take these matters seriously and clearly have more work to do when it comes to how we handle incidents in our stores. We are reviewing our policies and will continue to engage with the community and the police department to try to ensure these types of situations never happen in any of our stores.”
A second video of the incident shows the lead up to the arrest. The two men are calm the entire time and cooperative. The third man, who the other two were waiting for, has been identified as Alan Yaffe and he was the one who was going to buy them coffee.
“Why would they be asked to leave?” Yaffe, a real estate developer, asks in the video. He tells the officers that the men were waiting for him. “I wanted to get coffee for two black guys sitting and meeting with me,” he says. “Does anybody else think this is ridiculous?” he says aloud before a woman is heard agreeing. “It’s absolute discrimination,” Yaffe adds.
Philadelphia police also issued a statement and are looking into the incident as well.