The short video which showed the moment the homeless man was being badly treated by some employee at the quick service restaurant in Syracuse, N.Y was posted on Facebook and has since gone viral.
In the video, one of the employees who took part in the cruel act was head shouting loudly to the homeless man who was later on identified as Jeremy Dufresne “How many times do I have to tell you to stop sleeping in here?”
The employee who was responsible for dumping the bucket of water on the homeless young man was identified as Shakeen Robbins and he and the other employees involved have since been suspended from their jobs until a formal investigation is completed.
After dumping the bucket of cold water on the young man who had been resting his heads on a table while he charged his phone, the employee was said to have threatened to call the cops to get Jeremy out of the store if he didn’t leave immediately.
Responding to the incident, Kimberly Wolak who is the owner of the Dunkin Donuts franchise released a statement which announced that all the members of staff involved in the incidence have been suspended pending a full investigation. Wolak also mentioned in the release that he is currently trying to reach out to Dufresne about the issue in order to apologize for the way he was treated.
What many people found even more disturbing was the fact that one of the people involved was even bold enough to post the video on Facebook. He probably thought it funny that something like that was being done to a human being like them. one of the men could even be heard laughing while water was being dumped on the homeless man by the other.
The video of the act after it was posted online has garnered more than 5. 5 million views.
Dufresne, the homeless man who was badly treated at the restaurant said he sometimes visit the restaurant on other to get some warmth. He also uses the opportunity to charge his phone so that he can call his mom to say goodnight to her, something he does every evening.
But Dufresne although not happy about the incidence, seems to understand that the employee might have had a reason for his actions, saying the other man was probably frustrated and took it out on him”
“He probably had some personal problems of his own and needed someone to talk to,” said Dufresne. “And he took it out on someone else, like me.”
This seems totally with Robbin’s explanation of the incidence as he claimed to have done what he did out of frustration and he was truly regretted his actions afterward.
He also said that he wasn’t the one that posted the video online and he wasn’t the one laughing in the video as well. Robbins also claimed to have approached the co-worker who recorded the scene and uploaded it and asked him to take down the video by which time it was already too later.
Dufresne’s case got to the attention of Al-Amin Muhammed who is an advocate for the homeless. His NGO, We Rise Above the Streets organized a group of demonstrators to protest at the Dunkin’ Donut restaurant for Dufresne’s sake. A GoFundMe page was also opened for Dufresne and against the target of $150 the page has been able to raise $22,419 as at the time of writing this article.
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