Starbucks responds after video of arrest in Philly store goes viral

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Saturday, April 14, 2018
Police investigation launched after arrest in Philly Starbucks goes viral
Both police and Starbucks are investigating after video of an arrest at a Philadelphia Starbuck went viral.

PHILADELPHIA -- Starbucks confirms it is looking into an incident that led to the arrest of two men at a Philadelphia location earlier this week.



Video of that arrest posted to Twitter now has more than 2 million views and has also prompted an internal investigation within the Philadelphia Police Department.



The caption of the video reads: "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."



In the video, you can hear the friend who was meeting them ask officers what's going on.



"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 then chimed in.



"They didn't do anything, I saw the entire thing," a person off-camera said.



Starbucks apologized, saying "We apologize to the two individuals and our customers and are disappointed this led to an arrest."





Philadelphia police also tweeted that they are aware of the incident at the location at Spruce and South 18th streets and they are conducting an internal investigation.





The DA's office said it declined charges due to lack of evidence that a crime was committed.

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