Dunkin employee calls police when a student speaks Somali with her family

An activist student said that a Dunkin employee in Portland, Maine, had refused to serve and called the police after the start of an argument because she was speaking Somali. with her family.

Hamdia Ahmed, 20, said that she and her family were chatting in their car while they were waiting in Dunkin's car on Monday when the employee working at the window asked them to stop shouting.

"We only spoke in our mother tongue, we did not shout," Ahmed told NBC News.

Ahmed captured the final argument in video, which she has posted on Twitter.

"I will be disrespectful because I speak a different language than you, is that what it is?" Ahmed asked the employee in the video.

The employee immediately reacted by threatening to call the police.

"You can leave, I do not want to hear it, I'm done, you can leave or I'll call the cops," she says in the short video.

Ahmed then went to the cafe to see if she could solve the problem.

She noted that her brother had stayed in the car when she had entered the Dunkin ', as they understood that the police might be on the road, and "he was scared as Black in America – one never know what will happen. "

The police arrived within five minutes and gave Ahmed a notice of no violation, forbidding him to go to the store for a year.

The reason given by the police for this notification was "agitation – cries against staff".

The order has since been canceled after store owner Dave DaRosa stepped in, Ahmed said. DaRosa met the family on Wednesday to apologize and let them know that her staff would be better trained so that nothing like this would happen in the future.

DeRosa met with Ahmed and "sincerely apologized for the poor experience and is working to provide additional customer service training for his store team," Dunkin said in a statement.

Ahmed is a Somali refugee who arrived in the United States about 14 years ago. As a student at the University of Southern Maine, she describes herself as a role model and advocate for immigrant rights who organized rallies and spoke at the United Nations.

"I am proud to be voiced against this because it is not correct," Ahmed said. "My family did not deserve to be treated this way, and I hope to have started a conversation about why the police are being called on blacks for no reason."

In the last two weeks, at least three videos of whites calling the police against black people who have done nothing wrong have become viral.