Palo Alto woman loses job after confronting MAGA-hat-wearing Starbucks customer

FILE PHOTO: Workers stitch together hats on the factory floor of Cali Fame and Cali Headwear in Carson, Calif. The hat and apparel maker is best known for producing Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" baseball caps. less FILE PHOTO: Workers stitch together hats on the factory floor of Cali Fame and Cali Headwear in Carson, Calif. The hat and apparel maker is best known for producing Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" ... more Photo: Luis Sinco, TNS Photo: Luis Sinco, TNS Image 1 of / 19 Caption Close Palo Alto woman loses job after confronting MAGA-hat-wearing Starbucks customer 1 / 19 Back to Gallery

A woman who said she confronted a man for wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat inside a Palo Alto Starbucks was fired from her job at a nearby music store.

On Monday, Rebecca Parker Mankey took pictures of a man wearing a MAGA hat, and wrote in a Facebook post that she "called the entire Starbucks to order and yelled at him."

"He will never forget me and will think seriously about wearing that hat in my town ever again," she wrote. "If you see him in this hat, please confront him. You do not want to be the person who didn't speak up as we slipped into fascism."

Her Facebook post was widely shared and derided by conservatives, and her account has since been deactivated.

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A day later, Palo Alto music store Gryphon Strings announced that Mankey had lost her job.

"Gryphon does not believe anyone should be harassed or subject to hate speech no matter their beliefs," the store wrote in a Tuesday Facebook post. "Music has historically been something that has brought people of diverse socio-political backgrounds together."

The man wearing the hat, identified only as Victor, told NBC Bay Area that Mankey called him a "Nazi" and tried to get other Starbucks customers to shame him.

"This woman comes over, and she says, 'Is that a Trump hat?' I said, 'I think it is, yes.' And then she turned to the rest of the audience, the people in Starbucks and said, 'Hey, everybody! Come over here! Let's get this guy! He's a hater! I'm calling him out! He hates brown people. He's a Nazi,'" Victor said.

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In her Facebook post, Mankey wrote that Victor threatened to call the cops, and said she encouraged him to do so.

"[I] Wanted him to call the police because I wanted to know his name, where he lived, his wife's name, and where kids went to school," she wrote.

Mankey, who said she was "born and bred" in Palo Alto, told the Palo Alto Weekly that she and her family have received death threats after the incident.

Eric Ting is an SFGATE staff writer. Email him at eric.ting@sfgate.com and follow him on Twitter

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