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Video shows Dunkin’ Donuts employee dumping water on sleeping homeless man

Posted at 7:26 PM, Oct 01, 2018
and last updated 2018-10-01 19:26:31-04

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – A Dunkin’ Donuts employee has been suspended after the worker was caught on camera dumping water on a man who was sleeping in the store.

The video was taken Sunday night at a store in Syracuse, New York, and shows a man with his head down on the table and his phone charging next to him. A worker comes up and pours a pitcher of water on the man who immediately stumbles up.

The man, identified by The Post-Standard as Jeremy Dufresne, is reportedly homeless and struggles with mental illness. According to the paper, he stops at the store to charge his phone and on Sunday he was charging it to call his mother.

In the video, the employee can be heard laughing in the background.

“How many times I’ve got to tell you to stop sleeping in here, my (profanity),” the worker says to the man who had been sleeping. “You’re here all day. How many times do the people and the customers have to tell you to stop sleeping in here.”

He goes on to tell the man that he’s not going to call the cops. He just wants him to get out.

Warning: Video contains profanity

“He probably had some personal problems of his own and needed someone to talk to,” Dufresne told the Post-Standard about the worker. “And he took it out on someone else, like me.”

The worker has not been identified.

On Monday, roughly 20 people gathered outside the Dunkin’ Donuts holding signs that read “Homeless lives matter” and “Homeless are human,” according to WSYR-TV.

In a statement, the owner of the Dunkin’ Donuts franchise said that they were “extremely disturbed by the behavior of our employees captured in the video.”

Dunkin’ Donuts announced recently that, as of January, 2019, the company will be rebranding as simply Dunkin’.