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Detroit, MI – A Detroit food truck owner who refused to serve law enforcement officers said she did so out of concern for her customers’ safety.
“On this street corner I encounter all types and the only type that has ever purposely intimidated me is DPD [Detroit Police Department],” Rocky’s Road Brew owner Rocky Coronado wrote in a since-deleted Facebook post on Friday.
"The majority of my neighbors, customers, and myself do not feel safe around law enforcement agents [ICE, DPD, Homeland Security, etc.]," Coronado continued.
"I have asked friends from the National Lawyers Guild and I am well within my rights to refuse service to law enforcement agents," the post said.
She then declared that she would not serve law enforcement officers because they are too dangerous, according to The Detroit News.
"This for the safety of my neighbors and customers [who have all become friends] and myself," Coronado wrote.
The post also included a photo of a sign that read, “We reserve the right to refuse service to cops.”
On Saturday, Coronado penned another Facebook post explaining what she said had caused her to issue her anti-police declaration the day prior.
According to Coronado, two individuals “in [an] unmarked, black suburban with tinted windows both with bulletproof vests and badges” came to her food truck on Friday.
“I do not serve law enforcement [ICE, Homeland Security, DPD, etc.], so I told em I was closed to not make a tense situation more so,” she wrote.
Coronado said the vehicle soon returned, and that a woman “still with bulletproof vest and badge” came over to her to ask why she wouldn’t serve them.
“Not feeling confrontational, I meekly told her that I don’t serve law enforcement,” Coronado recounted.
She said she was “ready to rectify the situation” after the woman told her she was actually an employee of the Humane Society, but claimed the woman “quickly became belligerent.”
“The customers already at the truck were harassed by her and photographed despite NOT having their consent,” Coronado wrote. “THATS WHEN I REFUSED HER SERVICE and asked her to leave.”
Coronado decided to post the announcement that she would not serve law enforcement officers after the photos and the woman’s “false account of what happened” went “viral,” she said.
“Since then, ‘All Lives Matter,’ ‘Patriots,’ ‘MAGA,’ & ‘Christians’ have been slandering, threatening, and harassing the business via Facebook,” Coronado wrote.
“These people are the threat to freedom, equality, & peace in America,” she railed. “Their code switching, their hate, their ignorance shows me I’m on the right path.”
Coronado then declared that her “very existence” is her “resistance.”
“As a brown queer person in America, I am well aware that my very being is a threat to Amerikkka and its lineage of genocide, fragility, and hate,” she wrote. “These creeps cannot be reasoned with.”
Coronado said her business would be temporarily closed so she could focus on “self-care” due to the “madness” of the situation.
She refused to comment further about the incident, The Detroit News reported.
“If you can read, you know what the story is,” she told the news outlet.
Detroit Police Chief James Craig said the department is familiar with Coronado, and that she had been hostile with officers in the past.
"Generally speaking, we have good relations in that neighborhood, but my officers tell me whenever they've been in that area investigating criminal matters, she's been uncooperative and rude," Chief Craig told The Detroit News.
"She has clearly shown disdain for police,” he added. “The million-dollar question is: Why? We'd like to know what the issue is, and would like to sit down and talk to her about her concerns."
Although the chief disagreed with Coronado’s Facebook statements, her views will not affect officers’ willingness to help her if she is ever in need, he said.
Detroit Police Officers Association President Mark Diaz referred to Coronado as a “squeaky wheel,” and called her posts “childish and immature,” The Detroit News reported.
"Unfortunately, we live in a society where the media has sensationalized a lot of the anti-cop movement," Diaz said. "It's really just a small segment of society, but these squeaky wheels make the most noise, and they criticize everything police do."
"But it's their right if they choose not to serve police officers," he added. "It just shows that person's mentality.”
In an interview with FOX News, Flowers of Vietnam owner George Azar, whose restaurant is next door to Coronado’s, said he grew up in the neighborhood, just like many of those who went on to join the local police force.
“I was here before most of all these new businesses came up, and I’m from [the] neighborhood,” he explained.
Azar said he felt that law enforcement practices in Southwest Detroit should be a “case study for how to police in this country in a good way.”
“All the police here, they’re all community-based,” he explained. “They actually stop in and say, ‘Hello, how you doing?’”
“I just felt like it was pretty inappropriate,” he said of Coronado’s social media comments and attitude towards police. “I don’t want her to feel like an outcast, however… she needs to maneuver a little different.”