Police were called to a Philadelphia Starbucks after two men sat in the store without ordering anything. They were waiting on a friend to arrive and the friend arrived when police did, asking why the men were being arrested. Customers chimed in that the men did nothing but sit there, waiting. Once the story went viral, reaching over 2 million viewers thus far, Starbucks has issued an apology, stating they are reviewing the incident with officials to see what happened. Charges were dropped due to lack of evidence, but according to the customers there, there was no reason for the men to be arrested and many are saying it’s because the men are black. The caption to the video reads:
“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.”
Starbucks reply:
“We apologize to the two individuals and our customers and are disappointed this led to an arrest. 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.”
