“At approximately 12:30 pm (PST) on Oct. 8, as I was having some coffee, I witnessed a Starbucks employee physically assault a homeless man in the Portland, Ore. area in order to get him to leave the premises.
The man, who appeared to be in his late 30s, was simply sitting in his chair and this female Starbucks employee (Jeanne) came over to him several times between approx. 12:15 pm and 12:30 pm and asked him to leave. At the same time she also asked two other homeless people (a young man and woman) also seated in the same area to leave. When these three homeless people didn’t leave right away, this same employee (apparently angered) went over to the gentleman in his late 30s and kicked him at least a half a dozen times in the lower leg to rouse him to leave. It was sickening and if I am not mistaken this would be considered second-degree assault.
The location where this took place was at the Starbucks at 14620 SE McLoughlin Blvd, Milwaukie, OR 97267 (Milwaukie is directly southeast of Portland, Ore.).
At the moment that this man was assaulted and subsequently these three people were asked to leave, this Starbucks was virtually empty, so it wasn’t like there were people standing around waiting for a seat.
Shortly after this kicking incident I left the Starbucks and located the two younger homeless people who were seated across from the gentleman who was assaulted by the Starbucks employee, and they corroborated the incident and said, “All we wanted to do was rest.” Sadly, at that moment they were lying on a sidewalk alongside an adjacent grocery store in full sun, obviously extremely uncomfortable and hurting with nowhere to go. They said the gentleman who was kicked by the Starbucks employee hangs around the area where the incident took place, but they didn’t know where he went after they were all ejected from the Starbucks. I have not been able to find him. I have driven up and down the adjacent streets and still have not seen him. The young couple has also not been seen in the area since then.
That same day, about an hour after the incident, I spoke directly with someone at KOIN News who expressed interest in this sickening display for a story, but without some comment by the gentleman kicked or video of him they said they were not ready to do a story. I emailed KATU News and am awaiting a reply. I have also been in contact with the Oregon Coalition on Housing & Homelessness, and spoke with someone from this organization (Carol) who said she “was extremely concerned that this incident is the status quo in terms of how Starbucks treats people perceived as homeless.”
What was really shocking about this incident was that the Starbucks employee (Jeanne) seemed proud of what she did. As I was leaving this Starbucks shortly after the kicking incident I mentioned to her that she had to get some homeless people to leave, and asked her if she kicked the one gentleman and she replied, “Well yes I did—he wouldn’t leave.”
The houseless community is up in arms about an alleged physical attack by a Milwaukee Starbucks employee against a houseless man inside a coffee shop on Saturday, October 8.
The KBOO Evening News received testimony from an alleged witness who wrote that a female employee approached a houseless man sitting at a table at a Starbucks on McLoughlin Boulevard and QUOTE “kicked him at least half a dozen times in the lower leg to rouse him to leave.”
A spokeswoman from Starbucks said that the corporation had spoken to its employees at the Milwaukee shop and that there is no evidence anyone did anything wrong.
Starbucks issued a statement to the KBOO News that said, Quote:
“The safety and well-being of our partners and our customers is our highest priority. We have further looked into this matter, and have found there is no evidence of any type of physical altercation involving any of our partners.”
There were two additional houseless people in the Starbucks at the time of the alleged incident and the witness says the same employee forced all of them out.
The witness alleges that when the Starbucks employee kicked the houseless man’s legs, the shop was QUOTE “virtually empty.”
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