Red & Black Cafe co-owner John Langley said he "never expected an police officer" to come to his restaurant. And when one did, last month, he asked him to leave.
The Oregonian reported this afternoon:
[Portland police Officer James Crooker] popped into the Red & Black cafe on Southeast 12th Avenue near Oak Street, bought a coffee and was heading out when a customer [local writer Cornelia Seigneur] approached him, saying she appreciates the hard job that police officers do every day in Portland.One of the co-owners of the cafe, John Langley, has another point of view. While the officer and customer were chatting, he walked up and asked Crooker to leave, saying he felt uncomfortable having a uniformed officer in the vegan cafe.
Seigneur posted about the incident on her blog, but took down the post after the site was flooded with comments.
Langley said that the uniformed cop may have made some of his customers feel uncomfortable, particularly homeless people and activists who may have been targets of police harassment in the past.
Update: Cornelia Seigneur's original blog post about the incident is back up again!