Security footage making the rounds has dragged a Midtown St. Louis Starbucks back into the spotlight, and it is not for a new seasonal drink. The newly shared clips show workers grappling with would-be robbers on the floor. One of those employees says the company thanked him with a pink slip instead, setting off a wrongful-termination fight that has been winding through the courts since late 2023.
The latest footage, first aired by local television and later republished by The Independent, shows two masked men walking into the store and demanding cash while a driver in the Starbucks drive-thru backs away after spotting trouble. Barista Michael Harris told the outlet he thought he was "about to get shot" when one of the suspects hit him. He and a coworker say they then pinned one of the men until police showed up.
What the court record says
Court filings and an appellate opinion spell out the basics: On December 17, 2023, two men tried to rob the Starbucks at 212 South Grand Boulevard. Employees and a bystander restrained one suspect, while the other briefly ran before being caught. The plaintiffs' amended petition and the Missouri Court of Appeals opinion line up on the date, the location, and the chain of events that ended with arrests and later criminal convictions for the would-be robbers. Documents from the Missouri Court of Appeals serve as the main public record for those details.
Fired, then sued
Local coverage reports that Starbucks fired Harris and a coworker, Devin Jones-Ransom, in January 2024, and that Harris followed up with a wrongful-termination lawsuit later that year. According to St. Louis Public Radio, the suit includes wrongful-termination and negligence claims. Attorneys for the former baristas argue that previous complaints about unsafe conditions at the store are part of the story. The outlet also brought in local legal analysts to hash out how strong the workers' claims might be, and where the law is less forgiving.
Appeals, arbitration and procedural fights
Starbucks responded in court by asking a judge to toss the case or send it to arbitration, then appealed after the circuit court refused. The Missouri Court of Appeals weighed in with a March 3, 2026 opinion. The panel said it was dismissing two procedural points in Starbucks' appeal because of briefing problems and explained that it could not review other dismissal arguments yet, since they were not final judgments. That leaves the core negligence and wrongful-termination claims alive in the trial court. The opinion also highlights a key factual dispute over whether the workers were ever properly given, and actually signed, arbitration agreements during onboarding. See the full opinion from the Missouri Court of Appeals for the court's reasoning.
What's next
Harris' attorney, Ryan Krupp, told The Independent that the wrongful-termination case, filed in 2024, is set for a jury trial "beginning next summer," and he insists the fired workers "did the right thing." He added, "Situations like this remind us of a fundamental truth both ethically and legally: we owe our employers our good work, not our lives," according to the outlet. Starbucks has told reporters that partner safety and de-escalation training shape how stores are supposed to handle robberies, a corporate line that has appeared throughout coverage of the case.
With much of the lawsuit still intact after the appeal, the outcome now turns on pretrial rulings and whatever evidence the two sides bring to a jury. For St. Louis residents, the case has become a local test of how far corporate safety rules should go when workers are forced to make split-second choices on the job. Court dockets and local newsrooms will be where the next chapter plays out.
