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Coffee Shop Closes After Backlash Against Anti-Cop Facebook Posts

REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini

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Grace Carr Reporter
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A coffee shop owner has closed her shop after facing boycotts and receiving tremendous hate on social media in response to an anti-cop Facebook post over the weekend.

“I’ve lost my business and I’ve lost my daughter … I don’t know how this story just keeps building, but I need people to leave me alone,” owner of the White Rose Coffeehouse in Massachusetts, Kato Mele, told the Item on Wednesday. “I’m closing my business so I can stop being harassed,” she added.

The commotion started when Mele’s daughter Sophie wrote on Facebook that she would never let a “Coffee with a Cop” event — a chance for police forces and the public to meet peaceably — happen at their shop.

Angry comments erupted after Sophie’s post and displeased users weren’t the only ones upset. “I told her I didn’t hold those beliefs and said she didn’t own or run the business,” Mele told The Item on Sunday. Unfortunately the damage had already been done Mele said. “She has taken down her Facebook page and is receiving death threats and is hiding right now,” Mele added.

“Police are regular men and women doing a very challenging job these days and dangerous job at that. For a representative of this company to spread this hate and disconnect towards police to try paint with a broad brush of all cops being bad is very irresponsible and wrong,” wrote one Facebook user. “She is not helping anyone with that kind of ignorance,” said Medal of Valor recipient, officer Michael McEachern.

“This is a non-story,” Police Chief Michael Mageary told the Item after the story went viral. “The young lady has a right to say whatever she wants and we respect that. We will continue to do our job everyday. My sense is most officers will avoid the establishment, but that’s their choice.”

Following Mele’s statement, it appears that no one will be frequenting the coffee shop.

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Grace Carr