A Wendy’s shift manager in Huntingdon, Tennessee, has been arrested after throwing hot french fry grease on a customer during an altercation.
Demarrus Pritchett, 23, is accused of dousing a disgruntled customer with the boiling cooking oil after the unidentified customer returned to the fast-food restaurant upon discovering his food was cold last Tuesday night.
Around 11 p.m., the customer demanded a refund for the food after waiting in the drive-thru line again. A fight commenced, and surveillance camera footage caught Pritchett leaving the drive-thru area, entering the cooking area and securing a container of hot grease.
Walter Smothers, Public Safety Director for the Huntingdon Police Department, told WCCB that Pritchett “came back, opened the window back up, and threw it on the man that was making the complaint.”
“The young man threw his arm up to shield his face,” Smothers added. “The brunt of the oil hit his underarm, down his side. He had second and third-degree burns, blisters and so forth on his arms.”
The customer was rushed to Baptist Memorial Hospital to be treated for the painful burns.
Pritchett is facing aggravated assault charges, according to the Carroll County General Sessions Court Clerk. He paid a $5,000 bond and was released from jail.
The shift manager also told police that he had been harassed by that customer previously after confessing what he had done.
The victim’s mother told the news outlet that she couldn’t believe what happened to her son and that he was not well.
“He was like, ‘Mama, I really thought that he was going to go to the back and get my food right and bring it back. He said, ‘It shocked me when he threw the grease on me.’”
It’s not known if Wendy’s has terminated Pritchett or if he was reprimanded.
