The CEO of Starbucks has arrived in Philadelphia, hoping to meet two black men who were arrested when the coffee chain’s employees told police they were trespassing.
Calling their arrest “reprehensible”, Kevin Johnson told ABC’s Good Morning America: “I would like to have a dialogue with them to make sure we have the opportunity to really understand the situation and they can join me in finding constructive way to solve this issue.”
Meanwhile, about two dozen chanting protesters took over the Starbucks location in Philadelphia on Monday to protest against the arrests.
“We don’t want this Starbucks to make any money today. That’s our goal,” said Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, one of the protest’s organisers and co-founder of the Black and Brown Workers Collective.
Just before 7.30am (12.15pm BST), the protesters moved inside and stood in front of the counter, some holding banners reading: “End Stop and Frisk,” chanting slogans like: “A whole lot of racism, a whole lot of crap, Starbucks coffee is anti-black.”
Starbucks regional vice president Camille Hymes attempted to talk to the protesters, but was shouted down.
Over the weekend, demonstrators called for the sacking of the employee who contacted police, leading to the men being arrested on Thursday.
Officials have said police officers were told the men had asked to use the shop’s toilet, but were denied because they had not bought anything. They then allegedly refused to leave.
Police have not released the names of the men, who were later released after the district attorney’s office said there was no evidence a crime had been committed.
Over the weekend, Mr Johnson issued a statement saying the company is investigating its practices, working on training and will reach out to outside experts to make any needed changes that would help prevent such an occurrence from happening again.
“Creating an environment that is both safe and welcoming for everyone is paramount for every store,” he said in the statement.
“Regretfully, our practices and training led to a bad outcome – the basis for the call to the Philadelphia police department was wrong. Our store manager never intended for these men to be arrested and this should never have escalated as it did.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel