SAN FRANCISCO—A Richmond ice cream shop became the center of an anti-police protest on April 29, during their Ice Cream with a Cop event. The event was sponsored by the San Francisco Police Department.
At around 12:30 p.m. patrons began lining up in front of the shop when suddenly loud music and yelling was heard. Protestors arrived at the event and were heard shouting, “f**k the police” and “black lives matter.”
Rapper and anti-police activist, Adroa Anderson, better known as DoggTown Dro, posted a video of the demonstration on Instagram. Anderson wrote in the post:
“Joe’s Ice Cream held a Copaganda Event where police hand out ice cream tokens and ‘Jr. SFPD’ stickers to people. 7-9 Police Officers with NO BODY CAMERAS stood around doing NOTHING for 2 hours. The money San Francisco WASTED could’ve housed someone for an entire year or MORE! THIS is why we need to defund SFPD now. A week from today SFPD will be on TRIAL FOR MURDER, so they are literally outside buying ‘positive’ publicity and trying brainwash children with sugar.”
The owners of Joe’s Ice Cream were confronted during the event and are currently experiencing what was reported to be social media harassment. Protesters called Alice Kim and her husband “white supremacists” who were only interested in making money and not caring about others.
Kim explained to SF Gate that both she and her husband are from Korea, don’t speak English very well and misinterpreted the context of the protests. According to reports, protestors were upset that Kim’s husband compared vandalism to police killings stating that he too is a victim because his shop was vandalized. Kim told SF Gate that due to the language barrier, they believed the protests were to urge the police to do a better job in general.
She stated that she does not want to be involved in anything political and does not anticipate hosting another event anytime in the future.
