Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Trouble Brewing Over Starbucks Arrests: My Washington Times Piece On The Philly Starbucks Incident


The Washington Times published my piece on the Philly Starbucks incident:

Tensions are stirring and trouble is brewing in Philadelphia after two black men were arrested at a Starbucks on April 12.

The manager of a local Starbucks refused to allow the two men to use the rest room as they had not purchased anything. The manager then asked the men to leave the store and when they refused, stating they were waiting for a friend, the manager called the police and reported that the men were trespassing.

When the police arrived they too asked the two men to leave the store and when they refused the police arrested the men without incident, other than a store customer recording the arrest for social media and a chorus of irate customers shouting at the police officers. The two men were belligerent. They reportedly cursed the store manager and they insulted the responding police officers, telling them they didn’t know the law and scoffed at their salaries

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, helmed by Larry Krasner, a notorious anti-cop and radical DA, refused to charge the men and they were released some hours later. By then the video of the arrest went viral, as they say. Millions have viewed the short video of the arrest and the two men have now been proclaimed as racial victims.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross quickly put out his own live Facebook video in which he explained the incident. He originally stated emphatically that his officers did nothing wrong.

“They did what they were supposed to do, they were professional in all their dealings with these gentlemen and instead, they got the opposite back,” Commissioner Ross said in his video. “I will say that as an African American man, I am very aware of implicit bias. We are committed to fair and unbiased policing and anything less than that will not be tolerated in this department.”

But Commissioner Ross soon caved and the two men later received an apology from him. “I should have said the officers acted within the scope of the law, and not that they didn’t do anything wrong.” He said he failed miserably in addressing the arrests and the department was working on a new policy to address these kinds of situations.

He joined the chorus of other politically correct Philadelphia politicians who decried the arrests, such as liberal Mayor Jim Kenney, who wrote that he was “heartbroken” over the incident.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

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