SOURCE - Starbucks has apologized to police in Arizona after six officers said they were asked to leave one of the coffee chain’s stores last week because another customer said the officers made them feel unsafe.
The incident was brought to light by the Tempe Officers Association, and soon the hashtag #DumpStarbucks started trending on Twitter. But even as some people online voiced concerns about the perceived hostility to law enforcement, others said the encounter highlighted distrust of police in a city where an officer’s fatal shooting of a 14-year-old boythis year has sparked criticism of police’s use of force.
The apology comes more than a year after Starbucks temporarily closed 8,000-plus U.S. stores for what it called “racial-bias education” training, spurred by outcry after a store manager in Philadelphia called police in connection with two African American customers just minutes after they arrived for a meeting. Now the company is accused of creating a different sort of unwelcoming environment.
It's disheartening that in today's society, some civilians feel less safe with law enforcement around. That's not how things should operate. Now, I'm not going to get into the politics of police brutality and the ongoing war we, as a nation, are having with that issue because this isn't the place for that and I am no expert on that subject whatsoever, but I will say this... HYPOTHETICALLY, if that same group of police officers were anything but police officers and were asked to leave because someone felt "unsafe in their presence", this article would be drastically different and we would be having a very different conversation. I get it, I understand it as much as I can as someone who has never had a bad experience with law enforcement, but it's just sad that this is an ongoing issue in today's world. It sucks. It's not how it should be. There's a problem in this country for sure, and it needs to be solved, I just hope plans are put in place sooner rather than later.