Details continue to trickle out from Oklahoma after a Starbucks barista was fired for allegedly labeling a coffee for a police officer as for a “pig.” A Kiefer, Oklahoma police stopped into a Starbucks on Thanksgiving to pick up coffees for himself and four fellow officers.
While the story has a viral edge on its face, since spreading around the internet it has taken several interesting turns. One of the main reasons comes from the daughter of the officer who initially shared the picture and allegations that the officer himself was behind the prank.
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While the officer has denied any wrongdoing and Police Chief Johnny O’Mara asked for an apology but later went on Fox News to plead with Starbucks not to fire anybody, the story continues to churn.
The woman who claims to be O’Mara’s daughter spoke out when the story first took off and said, “he is absolutely a pig and i’d like to thank the brave men and women from starbucks for their service” on Twitter. She later added more to the discussion and even updated people to let them know her father had seen the tweets.
for the record, my father has 0 business being a police officer. he was blatantly, proudly racist when i was a kid. said things i would never repeat. he treats women like dogs, including his own daughter. oink oink 🐖
— o’mara (@MissOMara) November 30, 2019
“[Update]: he has seen it and had someone call my mom to “get that s— off twitter” [laugh my ass off] he is upset,” she wrote in a later tweet.
Some also started to dig into her own Twitter past to find some questionable posts where she used the n-word. While it does raise concern about labeling people good or bad without judgment, she notes that she was young and has grown since then.
Elsewhere, a reported Starbucks employee added fuel to the fire that the officer in question set up the prank himself.
“[Yo], ex barista here: to circumnavigate the profanity filters on starbucks POS, you’d need to make PIG your account name your mobile order account and scan it at the register/make a mobile order with that name,” the alleged former employee claimed.
>the profanity filters became standard and were also updated with a lot of words after a barista put a racial slur on a cup about a year ago. Pig was def one of the blacklisted words while i was there and would even catch it
— UpscaleFurryTrash (They/Them) (@DarkSoulsSauron) November 30, 2019
Many questions have now been raised by the incident, moving past mistimed joke and entering murky waters. In the end, going viral is a double edge sword and there aren’t many who get away unscathed.
