On
July 4, 2019, six police employees staggered by twos into a Starbucks store in
Tempe, Arizona (which borders Phoenix to the west). Because they did not come
in together, customers had a prolonged sense of a police presence throughout
the store. Eventually, the police huddled near the bar where drinks were left
for customers to pick up. Even as the police huddled, they did so with eyes
strategically perched so as to maintain visuals on the customers. Yet this was
apparently lost on the police themselves, who felt it was disrespectful for an
employee to ask them to leave after a customer complained about feeling
uncomfortable. It could not be assumed that the customer had had bad
experiences with police in the past, for any
customer would understandably feel uncomfortable with so many visible guns
passing back and forth. Indeed, for the police to treated the customers to the
display can be reckoned as disrespectful!
Unfortunately, the police probably had no recognition of having too many
at once in the store because intimidation as a deterrent by a very visible,
ubiquitous presence in the public (and apparently in restaurants) was at the
time the standard tactic. In short, customers could be expected to feel
uncomfortable, or at least to want some relief from the ubiquitous police
presence. Even so, Starbucks apologized because an employee acted on behalf of
a customer, whose complaint was valid given the overwhelming police presence in
the store. Yet according to the Tempe Association of police, the customer and
employee should have known that some of the cops were veterans so the errant conclusion
is zero respect for vets.[1] The association was so busy feeling disrespected that
no thought at all went into why customers could rightly feel uncomfortable with
so many police in a small store.
The full essay is at "Overzealous Police Presence."
1. Amir Vera, “Starbucks Apologizes after Six Officers Say They Were Asked to
Leave a Store in Arizona,” cnn.com July 6, 2019.
Interestingly (or tellingly), the police chose to leave rather than move away from where customers pick up drinks, and yet the police chief felt that Starbucks had disrespected the police in the store.
