One of the teens' battle wounds.
Littering isn't cool, but it probably doesn't deserve the Middle Ages–style punishment a group of teens claim they received at a Houston Taco Bell. They say angry employees spit on them, then stabbed them, then ultimately burned them with boiling oil after they chucked a bottle out of their car window in the drive-through. As usual with fast-food brawls like these, the carful of teens didn't exactly respond with Gandhi-like nonviolent resistance, but community activists yesterday asked police "what's taking you so long" to arrest the workers responsible for this "insanity."
Naturally, both sides of the story diverge, but there's at least agreement that one of the teens, Haronisha Alexander, refused to pick up the bottle she discarded because it was raining and she didn't "feel like" it. She says the drive-through worker responded by throwing a fountain drink at her and spitting in her face. This made her cousin go inside, where things quickly escalated from chairs "being thrown" to the worker allegedly stabbing the cousin with a butcher knife. A third passenger — Alexander's boyfriend — was doused in boiling-hot oil when he tried entering the store, and the teens say they rushed to the hospital, where the boyfriend is now "in intensive care ... going into surgery sometime tomorrow with third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body."
The employees admit to doing a little hot-oil flinging but add that Alexander returned once the store closed and threatened to kill everyone. She allegedly threw rocks at the front entrance and broke the drive-through window. Supposedly fearing for her life, one of the employees opened the door and threw hot grease on Alexander, who now has third-degree burns on her arms, neck, back, and legs.
About the only thing that could make this whole thing more insane is a news story that reports this story with a super-snarky, TMZ-y tone. Luckily, Houston's CW39 has that covered, too:
For its part, Taco Bell mostly seems to be siding with its workers. The chain released a statement, saying, "The safety of our employees and customers is our top priority and we are very upset this happened in our restaurant. ... This was a traumatic incident for our employees and we are supporting them by offering counseling."
[CW39]
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Filed Under: crime scene, houston, taco bell, the chain gang