KATY, Texas (WSYX/WTTE) —
An employee at a cookie shop in Texas was temporarily suspended after he bought an on-duty officer's order.
According to the Houston Chronicle, VKC Refreshments (which owns and operates Great American Cookies) released a statement apologizing for the decision.
"On behalf of Great American Cookies Katy Mills, we owe the employee an apology. It was never an issue that he purchased a brownie for a police officer, but rather the events that unfolded with another customer in line at the time," said Biju George.
"However, after further review, we realize that the employee was in fact in the right and we continue to reach out to him and his mom to issue an apology. The corrective action and suspension was reversed immediately and we hope to connect with him today."
The story went viral over the weekend after the employee's mother aired her concerns over Facebook.
The employee's mother, Tami Kurtz Randolph said the officer accepted his offer to pay for his order and was grateful. The kind incident took a turn when she said the family in line behind the officer got upset that her son didn't offer them the same.
"The next family walked up and said 'are you going to buy mine too?' My son replied with 'I'm sorry I bought his because he is wearing a badge'...... then this customer started verbally attacking him, calling my son a racist, & threatened to beat him up," said Randolph.
She said her son was later told to bring all his "stuff" to work the next day for a meeting with his manager. According to Randolph, her son was told that upper management wanted him fired. She said his manager intervened and prevented the firing because he was a good worked.
Randolph said her son was later told he was suspended for a week.
"Since when does buying a police officer a cookie give anyone else a reason to attack someone. And when did a Corporation want to FIRE someone for being KIND, taking what a customer said or did, regardless of how hateful they are," said Randolph.
She said that her son would have done the same thing again in a heartbeat.