The Scary Reason A Customer Was Assaulted In A McDonald's Drive-Thru
On February 18, the police department of Richmond, California asked the public via its official Facebook page for any information they might have concerning a suspect that attacked a mother and her children in a McDonald's drive-thru on February 5. According to the police, the suspect (a woman appearing to wear hospital scrubs) grew incensed believing that the victim's family had cut her off in the drive-thru lane. So much so that the suspect started hurling items and then rammed their car into the victim's vehicle.
When the victim got out of the car to prevent the suspect from driving away from the scene of the accident, the suspect proceeded to drive at the victim, drag her a good distance, and beat her further. "I was able to hold on to the hood of her car and she drove off with me out of the McDonald's," the victim told local news station KTVU. Physically, the mother seems to have recovered but both she and her children are traumatized and cannot face returning to the McDonald's restaurant.
Police have so far found the owner of the car (an unrelated individual), and it's said they are "not cooperating with the investigation," per KTVU. Now the authorities are turning to social media for helping in ID'ing the suspect who faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon.
McDonald's drive-thrus have seen an increasing number of violent attacks
Unfortunately this incident in Richmond, California is not the only case of a violent attack at a McDonald's drive-thru. Earlier this month, one person in Utah was arrested for waving his gun at employees in a drive-thru as he demanded a correction to his order, per KUTV. The police arrived and, after a short scuffle, apprehended him.
Similarly, this month also saw an arrest of a suspect behind another drive-thru shooting that occurred in October 2021 at a Tennessee location, says CBS 42 News. In this case, the man was also upset over a food order that was wrong. He demanded a refund and was refused. So, he fired a gun into the McDonald's restaurant. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the incident.
These are the latest in a scary trend charted by Inside Edition back in 2017 that noted that attacks on restaurant workers were seeing sharp increases. According to the article, citing the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, assaults on workers have doubled since 2012. And they seem to only be rising as the restaurant industry deals with worker shortages and supply chain issues that elicit the wrath of impatient customers.