'What did they do?': Footage of Starbucks arrest divides public opinion
A viral video of two men being arrested inside a restaurant has raised questions and caused heated debate online.
Footage of the incident, which reportedly took place on Thursday inside a Starbucks in Philadelphia, has been viewed more than 1.17 million times since it was uploaded to Twitter by novelist Melissa DePino, who claimed: "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 clip, as the two men are removed from the restaurant a man can be seen talking to a police officer, telling him the situation is "ridiculous".
The policeman says to the man: “We got called. We didn’t just come out here."
But the man continues to ask questions, saying to the policeman, “What did they get called for? Because they were two black guys sitting here meeting? What did they do? What did they do? Tell me what they did.”
Another person in the cafe pipes up, claiming: “They didn’t do anything, I saw the entire thing,”
Ms DePino claimed on Twitter that a Starbucks employee phoned police.
Some online users said they wanted to know the "full story" before they formed an opinion.
One Twitter user wrote: "Not going to judge this one too quickly would like to know the full story but this is still wrong if they weren't doing anything."
But many people were outraged by the clip.
One person tweeted: "Racial profiling at its best is what took place."
Another Twitter user labelled the situation "atrocious/abhorrent/racist."
"This one is not on the police, it’s on Starbucks! If Starbucks calls and says we want these ppl [sic] out of our facility, police has no choice but to enforce it. Handcuffs can be justified as for their own safety," one person wrote.
Philadelphia police have responded to the video on Twitter, saying that they are aware of the footage.
"The entire incident, including the actions of the responding officers, is under internal investigation. Once we gather all the facts, we will comment further," the Tweet read.
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 14, 2018
Starbucks have also responded to the footage, tweeting: "We’re reviewing the incident with our partners, law enforcement and customers to determine what took place and led to this unfortunate result".
We’re reviewing the incident with our partners, law enforcement and customers to determine what took place and led to this unfortunate result.
— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) April 14, 2018
The woman who posted the video has replied to comments claiming the men had been released and are real estate brokers who were simply "sitting waiting for their friend".