McDonalds Fires Attacked Worker, Wants To Be Seen as Welcoming
After a customer cursed, slapped, and jumped the counter, the McDonald's employee was arrested after he fought back.
31 year old Rayon McIntosh is no angel. In 2000, he was imprisoned for manslaughter after killing a high school classmate, and was restarting his life as a McDonald's cashier in New York City. The event started shortly after midnight on Wednesday when McIntosh was working the counter at a McDonald's in Greenwich Village, a nightspot area which can be dangerous. When he challenged a $50 bill presented to him, Denise Darbeau and Rachel Edwards (both age 24) began cursing him.
Witnesses report that McIntosh was slapped, and then one of the women jumped the counter and chased McIntosh. Her companion walked around the counter and together, the two pursued McIntosh toward the back of the store. McIntosh grabbed a metal rod and began to fight back, quickly subduing both girls. When the girls started to get up, McIntosh begins hitting them again.
Darbeau had a fractured skull and broken arm, Edwards had a cut.
In an official statement, McDonald's deplored the "reprehensible" violence of McIntosh and aplologized (apparently to the attackers) by saying
We strive to ensure that our McDonald's restaurants are safe and welcoming for our customers.
McIntosh is being held on $40,000 bail and was fired by franchisee Carmen Paulino who was "extremely disturbed" at McIntosh (though she had nothing bad to say about the two women).
Carmen Paulino claims that she offers "moral as well as financial support to our employees" but that does not extend to providing sufficient security or support for an employee who is assaulted by 2 customers at once.
As a black male felon, McIntosh was probably best advised to stand fast and let himself be attacked... or as McDonald's Corporation would say... "be welcoming" to his attackers.
Interestingly, McDonald's apparently had no security and did not even bother to prevent customers from walking back counter to assault their workers. McDonald's management did nothing while McIntosh was cursed and slapped. Nothing as the woman jumped the counter and her companion walked around the counter. Nothing as they chased McIntosh. Only after McIntosh fights back (alone) do the workers intervene... to restrain... McIntosh.
And none of the customers come to McIntosh's defense either, although a blond-haired girl can be heard yelling at McIntosh to stop, and another customer spent the time making a YouTube video of the incident.
McDonald's has recently been in the news as a supporter of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, and the McD has made its bathroom available to the protesters.
Any of us who have worked in foodservice establishments are aware that there are always dangers, particularly at night. During my stint as franchisee, I myself have been robbed at gunpoint at 5pm... and just 3 blocks from the NYPD headquarters. We kept a baseball bat next to the counter, and unfortunately we had occasion to use it.
For McDonalds to say not a single word of criticism against "customers" who jumped over the counter and were pursuing their employee leads me to wonder if the MCD execs have ever worked the night shift in the bucolic suburbs, let alone an urban area.
McIntosh is due back in court on October 18.
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