Residents, neighbors rally for Westport Starbucks worker who was target of customer’s racial slurs

Activists held two rallies Friday morning outside a Westport Starbucks where an employee said he repeatedly had been the target of a customer’s racial hatred.

The gatherings were at the downtown Starbucks, 1 Parker Harding Plaza. Both were peaceful, although one was described as more of a quiet sit-in and the other a Black Lives Matter-style protest with chanting and speeches. There were no arrests.

Both rallies were in support of Day’Shawn Rodriguez, who said in a social media post circulated last weekend that over the course of a year, a customer used racial slurs and harassed him. The five-year-employee said Starbucks did nothing to stop the customer’s behavior.

Rodriguez said in the post that a woman called him the “n” word on multiple occasions and sat in the store parking lot “for hours staring at me.” She once threw water on herself and screamed to customers that “the BLACK MAN DID IT,” according to the post, which only uses her first name.

“There was a point, he told me, where he was shaking at work when she was staring at [him] through her car window,” said Darcy Hicks, a local activist and founder of DefenDemocracy of CT who organized the first, 8 a.m. rally. Fairfield Yabantu organized the second one at 10 a.m.

Hicks became aware of the allegations after a local Facebook group called WestportMoms posted Rodriguez’s words. She called Rodriguez, who she said is 28.

First Selectman Jim Marpe said Police Chief Foti Koskinas saw the post, too, after his daughter shared it with him.

“And within a half an hour of seeing it, he was at the store in civilian clothes,” Marpe said. The chief went there to discreetly inquire about the allegations.

Rodriguez chose not to file a complaint, Lt. Anthony Prezioso said, and police cannot open an investigation without a complaint.

Rodriguez declined to comment directly Friday and, through Hicks, referred a reporter to his lawyer, who couldn’t be reached Friday afternoon. But Marpe said Rodriguez was happy to see the show of support.

“I chatted with him briefly,” Marpe said. “He seemed genuinely moved by the outpouring.”

“This struck a chord with a lot of people,” he added. “There was a groundswell of support and concern from people in Westport. This is just counter to everything the Westport community stands for.”

Reggie Borges, a Starbucks spokesperson, said the store put the woman on notice that she is not welcome in either of the two Westport stores after Rodriguez complained about the woman’s behavior on July 15. Borges said he lacked details of the incident.

As for any previous incidents – which Hicks and Marpe said date back to last fall – Borges said Starbucks is looking into it.

“Where could we have been better, from a local leadership level, where he feels that he raised this, and we took no action?” he asked. “Could there have been better opportunities to show him some support?”

Borges said Starbucks will “definitely take a look at that to find out how could we have been better, and better support Day’Shawn and address the concerns he had.”

Christine Dempsey can be reached at cdempsey@courant.com.

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