Two black men were arrested for waiting at a Starbucks in Philly.

A video has gone viral of an incident at a Philadelphia Starbucks with text saying that two black men were being arrested for waiting for a friend at the coffee chain outlet.

The video shows multiple officers arresting two black men inside a Starbucks

According to the person who posted the video, Melissa DePino:

“Police were called because these men hadn’t ordered anything [while] they were waiting for a friend to show up” and the two men were taken out in handcuffs for doing nothing” just as their friend arrived.

@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) 12 April 2018

Are the two men arrested at Starbucks really in real estate?

Claims on Twiter are saying the two black men were “real estate agents waiting for a friend,” but it’s unclear at this stage if that is true, has anything to do with the incident or if their profession was the reason they were waiting.

UPDATE: Two black men arrested at Starbucks names revealed in an exclusive interview with ABC.









So what really happened at Starbucks in Philly?

According to employees at the Philly store, the two men entered and sat down, after a few minutes they asked to use the restroom, the Starbucks employees informed the men due to the company policy they don’t allow non-paying members of the public to use the restroom.

The two males were then asked to leave the store as they weren’t purchasing anything, but the two men refused to leave, according to Starbucks employees, they informed the two men that if they didn’t leave they would call the police and the men responded saying “go ahead and call the police, we don’t care.” The employees then called 911 to report a disturbance and trespassing.

When police arrived on the scene, they were told by Starbucks employees that the men are refusing to leave, according to Philly police, the officers approached the men and asked them to leave, but they refused, so they called their supervisor in an effort to not escalate the situation.

Philly police report they had asked the men to leave on three separate occasions but they still refused, the officers claim the men gave them attitude and would not comply.

The officers then arrested and escorted the men out of the cafe, when Police took them to the station for processing they learned that Starbucks no longer wanted to press charges, and the two men were released from custody.

Commissioner Richard Ross made a statement saying the officers did nothing wrong

“if a business calls and they say that someone is here that I no longer wish to be in my business, they (the officers) now have a legal obligation to carry out their duties. And they did just that,” Ross said, “They were professional in all their dealings with these gentlemen, and instead they got the opposite back.”

Ross said that as an African-American man he was acutely aware of implicit bias. “We are committed to fair and unbiased policing and anything less than that will not be tolerated in this department,” he said.

Here is Commissioner Richard Ross’ full statement regarding the two black men arrested in starbucks:

UPDATE: Two black men arrested at Starbucks names revealed in an exclusive interview with ABC.

In a post on Twitter Starbucks Corp apologized for what took place.

“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 can handle incidents in our stores,” Starbucks said. “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.”

We regret that our practices and training led to the reprehensible outcome at our Philadelphia store. We’re taking immediate action to learn from this and be better. A statement from ceo Kevin Johnson: https://t.co/kPav8bEeOX — Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) April 15, 2018

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson also issued a statement:

NOTE: This article only has the facts pertaining to the ‘Starbucks arrest whole story’ and is not an opinion piece

UPDATE: Two black men arrested at Starbucks names revealed in an exclusive interview with ABC.

Related