Howard Schultz confronted by woman who recorded infamous arrest of two black men at Starbucks
Possible 2020 presidential candidate Howard Schultz was confronted on Wednesday by the woman who last year recorded the viral video of a Starbucks manager calling the police on two black men in a Philadelphia store of the coffee chain.
Schultz was discussing the incident during the Philadelphia stop of his national book tour when Philadelphia resident Melissa DePino stood up.
"My name's Melissa, I'm the person who videotaped and shared that, the arrest in your store and I pledged after that day that I would not stay silent when I heard something," DePino said.
"And very respectfully, I need to say to you, you are not describing the incident accurately. And the way you are describing it is perpetuating the problem," she said. "I know you want to be part of the solution, and I hope you will be, but when you say that there were words between the two of them and she felt threatened, that didn't happen. I saw it with my own two eyes, I was there."
A surprised Schultz told DePino he had "great respect" for her and what she did. The billionaire then explained how he had been counseled to downplay the role of race in the situation before sitting down for an interview last April with CBS's Gayle King, but he couldn't because he had asked the manager whether she would have reported the men had they been white and she said probably not."
"And so once I heard that, I knew that what occurred was a form of racial profiling," he said. "And I was advised that you can't possibly say that on national TV because that's going to damage the company, the equity of the brand, you shouldn't do that. But once I knew what she said, I felt I had a moral obligation to say the truth."
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