Plenty of people were outraged after watching a video of man attacking a young woman working at McDonald's in St. Petersburg, Fla. on New Year's Day. That man, Daniel Willis Taylor, 40, was eventually arrested and charged with two misdemeanor counts of simple battery. He remained in Pinellas County on Wednesday morning on $500 bond, according to the jail's website.
The video shows the suspect lunging at the worker and grabbing her by the collar while trying to pull her over the counter.
WARNING: The following video contains language some my find offensive.
The employee fights him off while managing to deliver a couple of punches to his face.
What set off a firestorm on social media was how a manager handled the situation prompting people to inject race into how the suspect was initially treated. The attacker was white and the employee was black.
After the attack, the suspect points his finger at the worker demanding she be fired as a manager finished preparing the violent customer's order.
"I want her ass fired right now," the suspect says in the video as a manager reads his receipt while other workers clean the mess from the fight. The employee responds, "You're fittin' to go to jail."
When Taylor was being escorted out of the business by McDonald's management, he kicked another employee in the stomach while she was standing near the door, police say.
“Our highest priority is always the safety and well-being of our employees and customers at our restaurants. We have been in contact with the police department and are fully cooperating with their investigation," McDonald's wrote in a statement.