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U.S.
Refusals to Serve Police Officers at Restaurants Draw Concern
By JONAH BROMWICHOCT. 7, 2015
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A Dunkin’ Donuts employee, spotting a police officer in the back of the line in West Hartford, Conn., on Saturday, announced, “He didn’t get the message; we don’t serve cops here.”
Last month, the manager of an Arby’s in Pembroke Pines, Fla., told a uniformed police officer that the employee working at the drive-through window refused to serve him.
Incidents in the last three months at a Jimmy John’s in Minnesota, aChuck E. Cheese in Bowling Green, Ky., a Whataburger in Lewisville, Tex., and a Starbucks in Philadelphia, followed a similar pattern. Police officers were denied service in some form — food, access to restrooms — by employees. Local news and social media quickly helped publicize the interactions, and often the franchise owner, if not the larger company, ended up apologizing (and giving police officers free meals).
Some say that these incidents alone signal a shifting attitude toward law enforcement officials among service industry workers. Samuel Walker, a criminologist and professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha known for his focus on police civil rights abuses, said that the change was a reaction to publicized police misconduct.
Photo
Roll call in the Bronx. Recent incidents of police officers facing denials of service have generated attention on social media. CreditSpencer Platt/Getty Images
“I think it’s wrong,” Mr. Walker said. “If you’ve got some criticism of police, this is not the way to do it.”
But Dennis Slocumb, the vice president emeritus of the International Union of Police Associations, was unsure whether the incidents constituted a trend.
“The way I look at it, and the way guys I interact with look at it, thousands of police officers eat meals at restaurants thousands of times a day,” he said.
Mr. Walker, however, said that these events are likely only the most publicized of the recent acts of disrespect toward police.
“I think it is safe to say there are more, given the events of the last year,” he said, explicitly linking a shift in attitude to an increase in media coverage of police violence, including high-profile deaths like Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y.
But there is no obvious indication that in any of the recent denials of service, the employee meant to make a political statement.
Indeed, a report in the Hartford Courant said that the Dunkin’ Donuts employee and his apologetic store manager chased after the officer. The employee said his comment was a joke.
And the Arby’s employee in Florida, Kenneth Davenport, 19, also described the comments as a poor joke. His manager, Angel Mirabel, who told the officer that Mr. Davenport did not want to serve him, was fired.
But a narrative being advanced by officers around the country supports the view of Mr. Walker, the criminologist. Some law enforcement officials, including Alberto Rivera, a former president of the Mexican American Sheriff’s Association, report seeing a broad drop in respect toward their work, one that is reinforced by recent survey data.
“With all the media going on, and the Black Lives Matter, they’re making cops seem bad and we’re seeing it on the streets,” Mr. Rivera said in August, according to the Houston Chronicle.
A Gallup survey conducted in June showed that confidence in the police nationally is “the lowest that its been in 22 years,” though it pointed out that, overall, 52 percent of people expressed “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the police.
Mr. Slocumb, the police union official, said that, even if an action was expressly political, it was not worth making a fuss over.
“If somebody wrote black lives matter on my cup, I wouldn’t get all exercised,” he said. “I would prefer that somebody refuse to serve me than do something to my food.”
