When I buy a cup of coffee on the way to work, the Styrofoam container has the salutation “Have a Nice Day” printed on it. Part of the reason I get this message and not something obscene is that I don’t wear a uniform or a badge. Another reason is that I don’t live in St. Louis and, therefore, don’t frequent MoKaBae’s Coffeehouse.
I wouldn’t even if I did live in St. Louis after reading that police who do find the gratuitous handwritten message “FTP” scrawled on their coffee cups. That’s short for “F*ck the Police.”
St. Louis has been an epicenter for anti-police sentiment ever since an officer in the suburb of Ferguson, Mo., shot a black thug named Michael Brown in self-defense.
As for MoKaBae’s, the owners feigned concern on Twitter after word of the insult to St. Louis’s Finest leaked out. First there was this:
We are aware of the situation involving an employee writing on our cups. We are addressing the situation.
— MoKaBe's (@MoKaBes) October 7, 2015
That tweet was followed minutes later by this one:
Per our policy he is on paid leave pending an investigation. B/C we take cup graffiti as seriously as the police take police murder.
— MoKaBe's (@MoKaBes) October 7, 2015
The reason I say “feigned concern” is that the store’s website and other social media accounts reveal its true colors — and blue is not among them. This is the photo “gracing” MoKaBae’s Facebook page:
And its webpage has this clickable image above the menu:
The “Von” in this invented holiday is VonDerrit Myers, an 18-year-old resident of St. Louis who opened fire on an off-duty police officer in October 2014 and was shot to death in the exchange.
