Starbucks responds to viral video showing arrest at Philadelphia store

Starbucks apologized on Saturday to the two people who were arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia earlier this week.

The coffee cafe chain said it is reviewing policies to ensure such an incident doesn’t happen again.

We apologize to the two individuals and our customers for what took place at our Philadelphia store on Thursday. pic.twitter.com/suUsytXHks

— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) April 14, 2018

The video of the arrest posted on Twitter has amassed more than three million views.

@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

The police were allegedly called because the two African-American men in the video hadn’t ordered anything while waiting for a friend to arrive.

{mosads}

The self-identified friend that the two men were waiting for is seen in the video asking the officers why they were arresting his friends.

“What did they get called for?” he asked. “Because there are two black guys sitting here meeting me? Tell me, what did they do?”

Other customers at Starbucks heard in the video also say the men didn’t do anything to warrant their arrest.

The District Attorney’s office said it declined charges because there was no evidence that a crime had been committed, ABC News 11 Raleigh-Durham reported.

Starbucks said in a tweet on Friday that it is reviewing the incident to determine what led to the arrest.

Philadelphia police also tweeted that they were aware of the incident and said it was under review.

We are aware of an incident that occurred on 4-12-18 at the Starbucks Café at 18th and Spruce. The entire incident, including the actions of the responding officers, is under internal investigation. Once we gather all the facts, we will comment further.

— Philadelphia Police (@PhillyPolice) April 13, 2018