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Arrests at Starbucks in Philadelphia: Highlights from the fallout and protests Monday

We recap Monday's protests and the continued fallout from the arrest of two black men at a Philadelphia Starbucks.

Jennifer Bennetch and her son, Yusuf Williams-Bey, protest outside the Starbucks at 18th and Spruce Streets on Monday.
Jennifer Bennetch and her son, Yusuf Williams-Bey, protest outside the Starbucks at 18th and Spruce Streets on Monday.Read moreJOSE F. MORENO / Staff Photographer

Starbucks is grappling with controversy after two black men were arrested at a Center City shop last week. Here are highlights from Monday, when protests continued.

Protesters march to several Starbucks locations in Center City

After holding a sit-in at the Starbucks at 18th and Spruce Streets, protesters marched four blocks to the Starbucks at 15th and Latimer Streets and took that over.

They then marched to the Starbucks along Broad Street at the Bellevue Hotel, where they chanted outside. Police tried to block the protesters from entering, and some activists found the Bellevue doors locked.

"I want to know why these doors are locked. … I want to know whose city this is!" one protester said upon trying to get in.

Activists march down Spruce after sit-in

Protesters were on the move after holding a sit-in at the coffee shop at 18th and Spruce Streets.

Activists take over city officials’ news conference and hold sit-in

Clergy leaders and activists from POWER, an interfaith organization in Philadelphia, came to the Starbucks for a planned sit-in and sang, "We shall not be moved."

Councilman Kenyatta Johnson and other officials were holding a news conference when the activists arrived.

Philadelphia LGBT Affairs Office says it was ‘appalled’ by the arrests

"We stand not only with the two black men who were wrongfully detained, but also with the countless people of color whose very existence continues to be daily undervalued and overpoliced — often without the benefit of a running camera," the office said in a statement.

Starbucks CEO meets with Mayor Kenney

Philadelphia Police Advisory Commission defends officers’ actions

The commission put out a statement saying the officers acted within the law.

"Given the information disclosed it seems clear that the responding officers, in this case, did not violate the current policies which guide their work and acted in accordance with the law," the statement said. "As for the Starbucks employees, while it will ultimately be up to the company to decide whether their employees acted within the spirit of their organizational policies, they certainly broke no laws either.

"Further, it seems that the men who were ultimately arrested in this incident may not have been legally justified to be in Starbucks once they refused to make a purchase and did not leave when asked by both the store management and police."

Starbucks issues correction about manager’s departure

The manager who called police to the Starbucks at 18th and Spruce Streets on Thursday has left the store "while there is an internal review pending," a company spokeswoman said. The spokeswoman said she had erred earlier Monday by describing the separation as "mutual."

Anti-Defamation League calls for Starbucks employees to undergo mandatory implicit bias training

Nancy K. Baron-Baer, ADL Philadelphia's regional director, also called for police to undergo training.

"Systemic racial discrimination and structural biases in our country are real and have devastating outcomes," Baron-Baer said in a statement. "Nobody should have to fear using a place of public accommodation because of the color of their skin."

Manager at 18th and Spruce Starbucks leaves the company

The manager of the Center City Starbucks where two black men were arrested last week has left the company in what a Starbucks spokeswoman called a "mutual" decision.

Activists had demanded the firing of the manager, who called police on the men Thursday as they were waiting to meet a white acquaintance in the coffee shop at 18th and Spruce Streets.

A video of the arrests went viral and has sparked national outrage and led the company's CEO to apologize.

More protests planned Monday afternoon

A sit-in at the coffee shop was planned for 4 p.m. Monday.

On Monday morning, Council member Helen Gym and about 40 others chanted and protested at the Starbucks. On Sunday, dozens of protesters also occupied the store for a brief time.

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson is in Philadelphia and wants to meet with the two men

Johnson has said he wants to offer a face-to-face apology. In an interview with the Inquirer and Daily News, he called the arrests "reprehensible."

"There are situations where it's appropriate to call the police, situations where there are threats or disruptions in our store," Johnson said. "This situation had none of that, and these two gentlemen did not deserve what unfolded."

Johnson said that the company's guidelines on when and whether to call the police are "ambiguous" and that he wants to clarify the guidelines and have all store managers do training on unconscious bias.

Starbucks shares open lower

The coffee company's shares moved down slightly Monday. As most stocks rose, news of the arrests spread and public-relations experts critiqued the company's response.

People are calling out other alleged incidents of racism at Starbucks

Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, co-founder of the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative and one of the activists involved in the Philadelphia protests, recalled being told to leave a Philadelphia Starbucks while checking emails in 2017. The store manager, Muhammad wrote, said seats were for paying customers only.

"I'm pretty sure that if I had on different attire or had been white, this wouldn't have happened the way it did," Muhammad wrote.

READ:re: StarbucksThis is an email from Abdul-Aliy from this past December. Starbucks in Philadelphia has a history…

Posted by Black & Brown Workers Cooperative on Sunday, April 15, 2018

On Twitter, a video from a Starbucks in Los Angeles also showed a store manager telling a man to leave. The man said in the video he had not been allowed to use the restroom before making a purchase, even though a white man had.

A woman recalled a similar experience in Philadelphia.

>>READ MORE: Need to catch up on the Starbucks arrests? Here's what happened