Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross is defending two besieged officers saying they did nothing wrong in arresting two black men at Starbucks. His vigorous defense comes as the police department and Starbucks are facing allegations of racism. Bystanders recorded the incident on tape and it quickly went viral.
Last Thursday, two black men were meeting a white man, identified as real estate developer Andrew Yaffe. The men, who were not paying customers, were later arrested after a Starbucks employee called the police.
@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
“What did they get called for, because there were two black guys sitting here to meet me,” Yaffe says on the video. “What did they do? What did they do?”
The backlash from the video led Starbucks to apologize. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson issued a mea culpa criticizing the store’s actions.
“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,” said Johnson.
The manager of the store where the arrest took place is no longer with Starbucks. Johnson is hoping to meet with the two men face to face.
Starbucks revealed today it would close 8,000 company-owned stores on the afternoon of May 29 to train 170,000 staff on how to avoid “racial bias.”
Philadelphia Mayor, Democrat Jim Kennedy said the apology from Starbucks is not enough. He ordered the city’s Commission on Human Relations to review Starbucks’s training provided to its employees.
“I am heartbroken to see Philadelphia in the headlines for an incident that – at least based on what we know at this point – appears to exemplify what racial discrimination looks like in 2018,” Kenney said in a statement.
Starbucks has been the target of protests and a social media boycott since the incident.
While Starbucks has been apologizing and the Philadelphia mayor remains critical, Philadelphia’s police commissioner is standing by his officers.
Ross says the two men asked to use the restroom. A Starbucks employee reasonably told them that bathrooms were for paying customers only. The employees then politely asked the two men to leave the store if they weren’t going to purchase anything.
Police were called after the two men refused to leave. According to Ross, officers then responded and politely asked the two men to go, yet they refused. After 15 minutes, the two men were arrested without incident. The two men were later released after Starbucks declined to press charges.
“They did a service that they were called to do,” Ross said. “And if you think about it logically, that if a business calls and they say that someone is here that I no longer wish to be in my business, (officers) now have a legal obligation to carry out their duties. And they did just that.”
Ross – who is black – also pushed back against charges of racism.
“As an African-American male, I am very aware of implicit bias,” Ross said. “We are committed to fair and unbiased policing and anything less than that will not be tolerated in this department.”
Ross later told a local Philadelphia reporter that his officers didn’t even want to arrest the two men. “I can tell you that that police officer did not want to have to arrest anyone in that incident. The whole thing, we just wish it didn’t happen,” added Ross.
AAN Staff
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