- California authorities arrested a man who punched a fast food clerk, gouging out her eye.
- Isaac White-Carter faces felony charges of maiming and aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury.
- Bianca Palomera, the Habit Burger employee, said the man had been harassing a child.
Police in Antioch, California, have arrested a man accused of punching a fast food clerk in the face. causing her to lose her right eyeafter she defended a boy from being bullied.
Isaac White-Carter, 20, was arrested Monday and faces felony charges of maiming and aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury, the Antioch Police Department said in a statement. statement. It is not clear if White-Carter pleaded guilty or retained an attorney.
Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe said in a video statement that Habit Burger employee Bianca Palomera, 19, had been “viciously assaulted” on November 12 and that White-Carter delivered the blow that ultimately caused Palomera to lose her eye.
Palomera said in her Fox affiliate interview that the incident started when she saw a man walk into Habit Burger and immediately began bullying the boy. She intervened, and surveillance footage obtained from the fast food restaurant showed the assailant hitting Palomera at least twice.
“I remember he grabbed my eye, at first I thought he was crying,” Palomera said. local Fox affiliate KTVU FOX. “But then, I saw that I had blood dripping down my shirt and down my cheek.”
The alleged assault on Palomera is just the latest in a series of recent attacks on fast food workers across the country. A spate of news stories in recent months have documented incidents in which often young employees have been verbally and physically abused, and even threatened with weapons. Often, the attacks stemmed from disputes over fast food orders.
In Antioquia, the same city where Palomera, a 16-year-old boy, was attacked Jack in the Box Employee it was recently knocked over and trampled on by a couple who complained about a hair in their food. During the summer, three clients vandalized a Manhattan restauranthe threw glass bottles and a metal stool at employees, and even threatened a worker with a taser.
In June, two women complaining about a problem with their order started repeatedly punching a Steak n’ Shake worker in Tampa, Florida. And a 17-year-old Burger King employee in Wyoming, Michigan, was punches, kicks and blows to the body by a customer who was irate because his soda glass was too full.
In the Palomera case, Thorpe said the Antioch Police Department’s Special Operations Unit and US Marshals had been searching for White-Carter for weeks before finally arresting him on December 5.
“Bianca was doing nothing more than advocating for a child who had special needs,” Thorpe said. “And today, she only has one eye. In my book, Bianca is a hero.”
Thorpe said he will hand over a key to the city to Palomera in a ceremony on December 13.
