Many people have done it – meet at Starbucks to catch up with friends. Some people, out of politeness, wait for their whole party before ordering. That’s what two men did in Philadelphia on Thursday, waited for a friend to show up before ordering. But apparently the staff at their local Starbucks weren’t happy about seeing two Black men sitting at a table without ordering, and called the cops.
If that weren’t bad enough, Philadelphia Police officers actually came, and arrested the men, reportedly for trespassing.
“The police were called because these men hadn’t ordered anything,” Melissa DePino said via Twitter. She posted this video of the arrest.
HuffPost, which notes the Starbucks manager is white, reports that “Lauren A. Wimmer, defense attorney for the pair who was arrested, told BuzzFeed that the man in the vest is Andrew Yaffe, a friend who was meeting the men at Starbucks. She declined to give the names of her two clients.”
“What did they get called for?” Yaffe asks an officer in the video. “’Cause there are two black guys sitting here meeting me?”
Another voice can be heard saying, “They didn’t do anything. I saw the entire thing.”
The Philadelphia DA’s office “told HuffPost that the two men were released at 1:30 a.m. Saturday. He said the DA will not bring charges against them.”
Many are outraged.
Former South Carolina State Rep. Bakari Sellers summed it up:
Starbucks has apologized:
But the anger and outrage is growing.
Some are also upset with the Starbucks statement itself:
This attorney says it’s “worse than I thought.”
Others have weighed in.