A joke or an insult? Starbucks employee is fired after L.A. County deputy is handed cup with pig drawing

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

A Starbucks employee has been fired after the Los Angeles County sheriff raised concerns about a disposable coffee cup with a hand-drawn pig on it was served to one of the department’s deputies.The deputy who received the drawing said in a post on his private Instagram account that he had stopped at a Starbucks location in Norwalk to get some caffeine in the middle of a 16-hour shift, KTLA-TV reported, adding that the deputy receiving the cup with the pig depiction said it “felt discouraging and disrespectful.” “All I wanted was caffeine, but instead I left feeling uneasy,” the deputy wrote of the Jan.9 incident.Starbucks said on Tuesday that it had conducted an investigation of the incident and had fired the employee who had handed over the coffee cup at the drive-thru window, even though the investigation found that the drawing was not intentionally meant to be offensive.Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson said the drawing of a popular meme, John Pork, was created in the morning, hours before the deputy visited the coffee shop.

“This was unacceptable.We have reached out to the customer several times and leaders in the Sheriff’s Department to apologize,” Anderson said in an email.

“Every customer should always be made to feel welcome in our stores.”After hearing of the incident, L.A.County Sheriff Robert Luna contacted Starbucks’ corporate security division “to formally raise concerns and to ensure accountability,” the department said in a statement.

California A young protester narrowly avoided being killed but was left permanently blind in one eye after a Department of Homeland Security agent fired a nonlethal round at close range during a Santa Ana protest last week, according to family of the victim.Officials also said Luna “spoke directly with the deputy to check on his well-being.”The Sheriff’s Department said in the statement that pig ...