A group of Arizona police officers was asked to leave a Starbucks coffee shop on July 4 after a customer complained to staff that she ‘didn’t feel safe’ with them being there, reports say.
Five cops from the Tempe Police Department were drinking at a branch of the coffee chain off on Scottsdale Road when they were approached by a barista and told that a customer had made a complaint about their presence.
The worker is said to have told them to either move out of the complaining customer’s line of sight or leave the premises entirely, the Tempe Officers Association claimed in a series of tweets.
President of the union, Rob Ferraro, believes the treatment the officers were subjected to is an unfortunate sign of the times.
‘It’s become accepted to not trust or to see police and think that we’re not here to serve you,’ Ferraro told FOX 10.
Five Arizona police officers were asked to leave a Starbucks coffee shop on Scottsdale Road (above) on July 4 after a customer complained to staff that she ‘didn’t feel safe’ with them there
A Tweet uploaded by the Tempe Officers Association shows a parody of the Starbucks logo, reading ‘Dump Starbucks’ with a cartoon of a hand pouring out the contents of a coffee cup superimposed over its iconic dual-tailed mermaid image
‘And again, it goes back to – we take great pride of the level of customer service we provide to citizens, and to be looked at as feeling unsafe when you have law enforcement around you is somewhat perplexing to me.’
The police union also addressed the incident in a chain of tweets on Friday, calling the treatment ‘disheartening’.
‘While the barista was polite, making such a request at all was offensive. Unfortunately, such treatment has become all too common in 2019.’
The union says they aren’t blaming Starbucks as a whole for the incident and said it looked forward to working with them ‘on this important dialogue’ moving forward.
President of the union, Rob Ferraro, believes the treatment the officers were subjected to is a sign of the times
However, earlier in the day the union tweeted a parody of the Starbucks logo, reading ‘Dump Starbucks’ with a cartoon of a hand pouring out the contents of a coffee cup superimposed over its iconic dual-tailed mermaid image.
‘Don’t appreciate @Starbucks asking our #Tempe cops to leave your establishment on July 4,’ an accompanying message read. ‘Several of those cops are #veterans who fought for this country! #ZeroRespect’.
Speaking to the Arizona Republic, a spokesperson for the company revealed that an investigation is being conducted into the matter and the details surrounding issue are not yet fully understood.
‘We have a deep respect for the Tempe Police and their service to the community,’ Reggie Borges told the newspaper.
‘We’ve reached out to the Tempe Police Department and Tempe Officers Association to better understand what happened and apologize. We want everyone in our stores to feel welcomed and the incident described is not indicative of what we want any of our customers to feel in our stores.’
The worker is said to have told them to either move out of the complaining customer’s line of sight or leave entirely, the Tempe Officers Association claimed in a series of tweets
The barista and the customer who allegedly made the complaint have not been named.
Starbucks also wouldn’t reveal whether the worker was disciplined in relation to the incident.
Last year, police in Philadelphia made headlines when they arrested two black men inside a Starbucks for trespassing as they waited for a work colleague to arrive.
Philadelphia’s police commissioner later issued a public apology to the men and Starbucks closed 8,000 of its stores to conduct ‘racial bias training’ for part of a business day.
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