Starbucks is under fire after two black men were arrested at a Philadelphia store on April 12, 2018.
According to reports, the store manager (who was white) asked the two black men to leave the store after they attempted to use the bathroom but had not made any purchases.
The men refused to leave as they were waiting for a friend, however the manager called 911 for assistance, and the men were arrested.
There has now been a call to boycott the popular coffee chain amidst accusations of racial profiling.
Video + additional details below…
The two men, who were peacefully sitting in the location, and were taken into custody after the manager called police to have them ejected from the property.
Multiple witnesses recorded the incident on cellphones and in one video, Andrew Yaffe arrives to tell police the two men were waiting for him.
Yaffe, runs a real estate development firm wanted to meet the men to discuss business investment opportunities. He is also the person heard in the video calling the situation what it was… “discrimination”.
The two men, who have declined to be identified, were handcuffed, detained and subsequently taken to a police station, where they were fingerprinted and photographed.
They were held for eight hours before being released after the district attorney found no evidence of a crime.
The CEO subsequently released an apology, however a movement has begun to boycott the nationwide coffee house.
Many have even compared the situation to historical violations of civil rights:
Montgomery, Alabama in 1958
or
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 2018Hard to tell the difference, isn?t it?#BLM #BoycottStarbucks pic.twitter.com/gx84DXcdBS
— Kaz Weida (@kazweida) April 14, 2018