Starbucks has apologized after a viral video appeared to show two men being arrested while waiting to meet a friend.
"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 departments to try and ensure these types of situations never happen in any of our stores," the company said in a statement posted to social media.
We apologize to the two individuals and our customers for what took place at our Philadelphia store on Thursday. pic.twitter.com/suUsytXHks
— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) April 14, 2018
The statement comes after a customer at a Philadelphia store recorded what appeared to be two black men being arrested by police officers.
Melissa DePino, the Twitter user who originally posted the video at 5 p.m. on Thursday, stated that the men who were arrested were waiting for a friend and did not order any food or drinks. She added they were "taken out in handcuffs for doing nothing."
@Starbucks 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. pic.twitter.com/0U4Pzs55Ci
— Melissa DePino (@missydepino) April 12, 2018
A white man in the video asks the arresting officers, "What did they get called for? Cause there are two black guys sitting here meeting me?”
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said an internal review of the incident revealed the officers who responded to a call at the Starbucks acted appropriately. Ross said officers asked the men politely three times to leave, but the men continued to tell officers they would not leave.
WTVD-TV in Philadelphia reports that they declined to file trespassing charges against the men.
Alex Hider is a writer for the E.W. Scripps National Desk. Follow him on Twitter @alexhider.
