NEW YORK CITY — The fatal stabbing of a McDonald’s employee Monday is the latest in a long line of violent incidents at the fast food chain's New York City locations, records show.
In the last five years, three people have been killed and at least 19 injured in 24 violent incidents at the chain.
Adam Garcia, 28, was stabbed in the neck and chest by the unruly homeless man he was escorting out of McDonald’s at 5765 Broadway, near West 236th Street, at 4:27 a.m. Monday, police said. He was taken to New York Presbyterian/The Allen Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Police said they are investigating the stabbing, and no arrests were immediately made.
Garcia is not the only McDonald's employee who has been hurt while kicking out a customer. In November, a 64-year-old worker on the Lower East Side was shoved, punched and stomped in the head by a customer he asked to leave the Delancey Street restaurant, police said.
Workers can also cause some of the mayhem. On New Year’s Day, a security guard attacked a tourist who didn’t want to pay $5 to use the bathroom near Times Square, police said.
However, most of the attacks have been at the hands of customers or visitors.
In November, Angel Quiñones, 43, was killed and two others were injured in a Penn Station shooting sparked by a turf war over drugs at a Midtown McDonald’s, police said. Suspects Vincent Arcona, 27, and Francisco Alsina, 23, wanted to be the drug kingpins of the Midtown Golden Arches, the NYPD said.
A fight inside a Coney Island location led to the death of a 20-year-old man on Easter Sunday in 2014, police said. After the fight moved onto the sidewalk, the man was fatally stabbed in the gut and his adversary was stabbed in the lower back, police said.
A corporate spokesman for McDonald's USA said there is no uniform security policy throughout the franchises.
"These crimes are senseless and it’s important to continue to seek practices that eliminate them, including working closely with the NYPD and local authorities," McDonald's spokesman Ross Wallenstein said.
Security issues at McDonald’s gained notoriety in 2011, when employee Rayon McIntosh was caught on video beating two customers with a metal rod after they attacked him, police said. McIntosh was later cleared of charges after a grand jury found he acted in self-defense, and the customers were indicted for burglary.
The West Third Street location where McIntosh worked has been plagued by violence. In March 2011, Damian Furtch said he was attacked as he was leaving the restaurant by two men yelling anti-gay slurs. On St. Patrick’s Day 2012, three men fought in a brawl in the restaurant that was caught on camera. Six months later, Keith Patron slashed a 24-year-old man in the face, arm, neck and back after yelling slurs about him and his transgender girlfriend in the location, prosecutors said.
Former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn even called for a boycott of the location until they amped up security.
“They need to do some crowd dispersal there,” McIntosh told DNAInfo in 2012. “As soon as the clubs get out, everyone is in that McDonald's. They need more security there."
At other locations throughout the city, there have been at least eight stabbings, four brawls, two shootings and a sexual assault, records show.
A 4-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by a 14-year-old boy in the play area of a Jamaica McDonald's in August 2013, police said.
In April of this year, a 20-year-old bystander was shot in the knee in a drive-by shooting following a melee in a Flatbush McDonald’s, police said.
A month later, a 17-year-old girl was hospitalized after a brawl with her classmates at a Fort Greene McDonald’s. A 43-year-old man was attacked for trying to stop the gang-related assault at 395 Flatbush Ave. Extension, and five people were arrested, police said.
Another brawl that broke out in September at the Atlantic Terminal location left one teen stabbed, another slashed and a police officer maced, the NYPD said.
Also in Brooklyn, a 20-year-old man suffered minor lacerations at a Crown Heights location after a group of men hurled plastic trays at him and robbed him while yelling anti-gay slurs last month, authorities said.
The NYPD did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
