Current Events > Dunkin Donuts manager punches customer to death after being called the n-word

(+) Yeah! (+)

The way shit plays out like this is always fucked up.

Uncle of mine wound up going to prison for the same situation(argument, shoving match, guy spit on his fries, he punched him once, dead.). Kinda crazy to think about situations playing out like that.

For those defending this, what if he would have called him the R word? Still justifiable ok your opinion?

Unknown5uspect posted...

This shit needs to stop. That motherfucker was beyond old enough to know better.

It's more about his physical frailty and high chance a punch ends him

haloiscoolisbak posted...

It's more about his physical frailty

Irrelevant.

this is like pulling teeth. was gonna post this ages ago but was on my phone

Explaining the one punch law.

https://tinyurl.com/ycy7373r

Unknown5uspect posted...

Irrelevant.

it's really not. you're focusing on the wrong thing. "talk shit get hit" is not a rational argument.

The issue is was a punch to the head justified. You'd be surprised that more often than not, it isn't.

haloiscoolisbak posted...

this is like pulling teeth. was gonna post this ages ago but was on my phone

Explaining the one punch law.

https://tinyurl.com/ycy7373r

Why are you posting a law from a backwards country no one cares about like it matters

haloiscoolisbak posted...

it's really not. you're focusing on the wrong thing.

The issue is was a punch to the head justified. You'd be surprised that more often than not, it isn't.

If it is relevant it fucking shouldn't be. Off top don't say shit that won't start a fight and you won't be in one. You don't get a pass on that because you're old.

Axiom posted...

Why are you posting a law from a backwards country no one cares about like it matters

because it explains my stance better than I can clearly

My main point is that a punch to the head is extremely serious.

and lol at thinking we're backwards when it comes to violence. just lol. such a lack of awareness for how the rest of the world views america - i'm not hating, it's just like.... there's a lot of violence

ExtremeLuchador posted...

Trying working in hospitals or care facilities with elderly patients. They can say all sorts of nasty things to you. You'll end up in jail if you retaliate in any way.

In regards to "old people are out of touch and cranky", that's no excuse to yell racial slurs at someone. Just because old people can be like that, and often are, it doesn't give them a free pass to do that shit anywhere. Most people know to be decent in public.

In case you're equating the responsibility of a fast food worker and an aged care worker - sure, you're gonna be a massive asshole and go to jail for beating elderly people under your care. But this was a Dunkin' Donuts, where a man was confronted with unprecedented racial abuse, not an aged care residence. The guy got racially denigrated in his own place of work by a dickhead, somewhere that a reasonable amount of people don't blow up and sling racial epithets at him. If he worked in aged care and some racist asshole under his care said something to him, the circumstances would be different - I'd still empathize with the guy for lashing out at racist abuse, but "talk shit, get hit" doesn't work when the person you're hitting relies on you and the power you have over them to live their lives.

They serve food and drink, so by all means they could be the ultimate arbiter of someone's date if circumstances dictated. But the responsibilities of being a Dunkin' Donuts manager and being an aged care worker are inherently different, and when you have a person provoking hostility for no other reason but to be hurtful and rude, people are going to react differently whether they're in a Dunkin' fucking Donuts or Shady Pines Residence for the Distinguished Senior.

Yeah, old people are racist, and that would seep out in places where the oldest and most frail of our population are placed to live out their final years. That doesn't mean that what the deceased did was at all excusable, and while the loss of life is unfortunate, there is a clear difference between "aged care nurse kills senior under their care in fit of rage" and "fast food manager reacts to racial abuse because someone got a burnt bear claw and watery coffee".

Also, halo's comment is true about Australia. In the late 2000's, there were a spate of drunken assaults at a popular pubbing spot in Sydney that killed people.

Two of the effects these killings had were pub lockout laws - which I don't entirely agree with, since they're state wide vs. the localised nature of the assaults - and the wider proliferation of information regarding the effects of blunt force trauma to the head.

There was an attempt to rebrand the term "king hit" to "coward punch" - which I disagree with again, not because it isn't a well-intentioned step to reduce violence, but because slang proliferates for its sound and popularity and the attempt to hamfist "coward punch" through the media was very noticeable and annoying - and people who punched on and killed people at King's Cross faced the full brunt of their charges as an example.

Like guys would punch people in the back of the head or just sucker punch them, and not only would the impact cause irreversible damage to their soft tissue, skull and brain, but the afflicted would fall over due to the force and hit their head again on the cement. It was the second impact that tended to kill them.

The bulk of these punishments were put into effect at the time, with the occasional news story to this day about a coward punch manslaughter where the perpetrator goes to jail. Otherwise, the King's Cross news all but vanished after this whole debacle happened. But yeah, the police cracked down hard on physical assault, especially in regards to public assaults between strangers in which one of them is killed by a strike. To this day, you can get jailtime for fucking up a stranger under the influence of alcohol, or due to disproportionate anger or what have you. That's how it is in Australia.

haloiscoolisbak posted...

because it explains my stance better than I can clearly

My main point is that a punch to the head is extremely serious.

and lol at thinking we're backwards when it comes to violence. just lol. such a lack of self awareness for how the rest of the world views america - i'm not hating, it's just like.... there's a lot of violence

Australia bans media including video games at the drop of a hat and lost a war to emus. Backwards is the perfect descriptor for Australia

As for stupid laws plenty exist around the world. Any public building in Wyoming has to have artwork worth a certain percentage of the building. Doesn't mean shit to the rest of the world

Axiom posted...

Australia bans media including video games at the drop of a hat and lost a war to emus. Backwards is the perfect descriptor for Australia

As for stupid laws plenty exist around the world. Any public building in Wyoming has to have artwork worth a certain percentage of the building. Doesn't mean shit to the rest of the world

how to even respond to this dribble? Half your country owns guns. Case closed.

Dat_Cracka_Jax posted...

Is this a new story? It sounds really familiar to me

The incident occurred a while ago but the sentencing is new.

Wherethisfeom posted...

Maybe you're just willfully blind to your own country's incidents then?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/queensland-woman-boasted-running-down-170941367.html

yeah I think you misinterpreted my original point and i couldn't be bothered explaining as I was already arguing with other people. it's crazy how shameless you guys are with the adhominems by the way. maybe we are more lenient than the US with murder, we don't have the death penalty for a start.

The reason I mentioned the one punch law and that other countries should adopt is that its very progressive in recognising the severity of a punch to the head. people kept getting punched, falling over and dying after they hit the ground and we had to be harsher on it to stop the "talk shit get hit, don't start none there won't be none" mentality which belongs in the past.

the old romantic notion of fists being a relatively safe, fair way to settle a dispute while only knives and guns are barbaric is wrong and history will show that... I mean look what we've learnt about concussions in recent times....

Seems like a fair sentence to me. Anger management will do a lot better than throwing this dude in jail

This entire situation was avoidable, there's no reason to go into a business and start throwing out racial slurs over some coffee or food or whatever

BobanMarjanovic posted...

For those defending this, what if he would have called him the R word? Still justifiable ok your opinion?

And what if the old man came at him with a gun?!

Why not talk about what actually happened instead of trying to argue about things that didn't?

The anger management and house arrest might actually do some good. It helped me out. The old man was worthless. I have no sympathy.

Axiom posted...

Australia bans media including video games at the drop of a hat and lost a war to emus. Backwards is the perfect descriptor for Australia

As for stupid laws plenty exist around the world. Any public building in Wyoming has to have artwork worth a certain percentage of the building. Doesn't mean shit to the rest of the world

I don't care about the story in the OP playing out as it did but calling the One Punch Law stupid or backwards is pretty dumb.

Drunk guys were going around and punching people and accidentally killing them. So a law was passed to make it known how serious a punch can actually be as a major deterring to not randomly hit people 'for fun'. It existed so there was something that covered the in between scenario of murder or manslaughter when neither was really covered by it.

Considering the comments in this topic are so damn ignorant about how dangerous punches can actually be it probably should be more common.

Whether it not the One Punch Law would apply during a verbal altercation like this isn't really guaranteed either so I don't even know how this would play out in an Australian court anyway. There's plenty for a defendant to appeal which is what happened here anyway.

Again I don't give a rats ass that an old racist sex offender was killed by a punch. But the talk here about that it's a freak scenario because of his age or whatever isn't really true. The body can be weirdly fragile if the right place is struck.

should have slapped him like it was the sims 4 instead of punching him

I personally wouldn't throw derogatory terms at people unless I were prepared for their response. I usually don't even escalate things because jail is for suckas. I don't even start shit in traffic lololol.

imagine your last words being so horrible. he was probably heading to Hell with or without that punch lol.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


I'm aware. Which is why laws like One Punch exist.

But some people legit seem to think this only happened because the man was old.

Won't be missed.

Huh.

play stupid games, win stupid prizes

MrMallard posted...

In regards to "old people are out of touch and cranky", that's no excuse to yell racial slurs at someone. Just because old people can be like that, and often are, it doesn't give them a free pass to do that shit anywhere. Most people know to be decent in public.

What you dont think about is dementia. It isnt something that happens all of a sudden. It generally starts with little bad choices being noticed here and there. My dad started making small bad choices in his 70s, by his 80s they were more common than not and in his 90s his mind was gone. Thats dementia progressing over 20+ years.

This man was in his 70s. This could have been a moment when his mind didnt put the brakes on something that it should have.

Our legal system is fucked. Dude needs to be behind bars for 10 years minimum.

MrMallard posted...

In regards to "old people are out of touch and cranky", that's no excuse to yell racial slurs at someone. Just because old people can be like that, and often are, it doesn't give them a free pass to do that shit anywhere. Most people know to be decent in public.

In case you're equating the responsibility of a fast food worker and an aged care worker - sure, you're gonna be a massive asshole and go to jail for beating elderly people under your care. But this was a Dunkin' Donuts, where a man was confronted with unprecedented racial abuse, not an aged care residence. The guy got racially denigrated in his own place of work by a dickhead, somewhere that a reasonable amount of people don't blow up and sling racial epithets at him. If he worked in aged care and some racist asshole under his care said something to him, the circumstances would be different - I'd still empathize with the guy for lashing out at racist abuse, but "talk shit, get hit" doesn't work when the person you're hitting relies on you and the power you have over them to live their lives.

They serve food and drink, so by all means they could be the ultimate arbiter of someone's date if circumstances dictated. But the responsibilities of being a Dunkin' Donuts manager and being an aged care worker are inherently different, and when you have a person provoking hostility for no other reason but to be hurtful and rude, people are going to react differently whether they're in a Dunkin' fucking Donuts or Shady Pines Residence for the Distinguished Senior.

Yeah, old people are racist, and that would seep out in places where the oldest and most frail of our population are placed to live out their final years. That doesn't mean that what the deceased did was at all excusable, and while the loss of life is unfortunate, there is a clear difference between "aged care nurse kills senior under their care in fit of rage" and "fast food manager reacts to racial abuse because someone got a burnt bear claw and watery coffee".

Also, halo's comment is true about Australia. In the late 2000's, there were a spate of drunken assaults at a popular pubbing spot in Sydney that killed people.

Two of the effects these killings had were pub lockout laws - which I don't entirely agree with, since they're state wide vs. the localised nature of the assaults - and the wider proliferation of information regarding the effects of blunt force trauma to the head.

There was an attempt to rebrand the term "king hit" to "coward punch" - which I disagree with again, not because it isn't a well-intentioned step to reduce violence, but because slang proliferates for its sound and popularity and the attempt to hamfist "coward punch" through the media was very noticeable and annoying - and people who punched on and killed people at King's Cross faced the full brunt of their charges as an example.

Like guys would punch people in the back of the head or just sucker punch them, and not only would the impact cause irreversible damage to their soft tissue, skull and brain, but the afflicted would fall over due to the force and hit their head again on the cement. It was the second impact that tended to kill them.

The bulk of these punishments were put into effect at the time, with the occasional news story to this day about a coward punch manslaughter where the perpetrator goes to jail. Otherwise, the King's Cross news all but vanished after this whole debacle happened. But yeah, the police cracked down hard on physical assault, especially in regards to public assaults between strangers in which one of them is killed by a strike. To this day, you can get jailtime for fucking up a stranger under the influence of alcohol, or due to disproportionate anger or what have you. That's how it is in Australia - I don't disagree with the increased criminality of violent assault in the wake of what I've just said, but I have my own beliefs on whether someone should be allowed to walk free in the face of an attack they were goaded into.

I empathize with this person, and I imagine that they didn't go out ready to throw hands or kill anybody. To walk free after this, I imagine they would have been significantly apologetic and traumatized over the whole ordeal. While my prior comment was made in anger, and I acknowledge that my viewpoint is informed by my own values and my own anger, my viewpoint is the same - I don't blame a person for lashing out against unnecessary racial abuse, and while the loss of human life is unfortunate on a basic human level, I do think that the deceased was in the wrong. If he hadn't used racial slurs multiple times, even after being given the option to back down and walk away - hell, even downgrade his abuse if he was dead set on venting at this manager - he doubled down on the racial slurs and was attacked in a fit of rage. This was completely avoidable, and I imagine no-one wanted things to end up this way.

What a garbage post. Assault is worse than throwing racial slurs at people. Want to know how I know this? One person died from assault and the other person is alive and well. One guy got a major slap on the wrist for assault and the other guy would likely have faced zero legal consequence if he wasn't assaulted.

How does this need to be explained to people?

The fact that it was an old guy he punchedales it even worse. You're punching someone who is obviously more vulnerable.

Two years of house arrest is a joke. Dude should be behind bars for a decade.

Yeah no one ever died from racism.

Florida investigators said Cook had initially gone through the drive-thru, but was so angered about the lack of service he parked his car and entered the store to complain. Employees knew Cook as a frequent customer who was regularly troublesome and abusive, according to a release from the State Attorneys office.
Prosecutors said it was important there were consequences for Pujols actions, but also took into account Cooks abusive behavior and very troublesome criminal history, which included prison time.
They claimed this combination of factors made Cook an unsympathetic victim.
This outcome holds the defendant accountable while taking into account the totality of the circumstancesthe aggressive approach and despicable racial slur used by the victim, along with the defendants age, lack of criminal record, and lack of intent to cause the victims death, Grayson Kamm, a spokesperson for the Hillsborough State Attorneys Office, told Fox13.

Relevant exerpt for those suggesting the manager deserves a harsher sentence. The prosecutors even understand that the victim's attitude was overly aggressive and he had a history there. Dude had a history of starting shit at the store and had a criminal record. The manager didn't have a criminal record and clearly didn't intend to kill the guy. This was obviously a crime of passion in response to the victim's own constantly aggressive attitude. They're looking at the totality of events and circumstances, rather than observing this one incident in a vacuum.

Dude deserves a medal for eliminating a pedo and racist with one rock

Some people really triggered by this verdict

TheOtherMike posted...

Relevant exerpt for those suggesting the manager deserves a harsher sentence. The prosecutors even understand that the victim's attitude was overly aggressive and he had a history there. Dude had a history of starting shit at the store and had a criminal record. The manager didn't have a criminal record and clearly didn't intend to kill the guy. This was obviously a crime of passion in response to the victim's own constantly aggressive attitude. They're looking at the totality of events and circumstances, rather than observing this one incident in a vacuum.

If there were many repeated events like this then it does change things a bit.

I can both understand the Dunkin employees frustration more, but I also increasingly ask "why wasn't this guy already banned from the store?"

Calling a worker the N word should be an easy thing to ban a customer for.

hockeybub89 posted...

Some people really triggered by this verdict

Posts like this are why I say far left people have adopted a lot of Trumper tactics in recent years.

Saying people were "triggered" or being a "snowflake" was a Trumper thing to say back in 2016-18. Now I hear it from far left people.

2 years house arrest and anger management classes sound appropriate for accidentally killing a cut and dry bad person.

TommyG663513 posted...

I can both understand the Dunkin employees frustration more, but I also increasingly ask "why wasn't this guy already banned from the store?"

Generally corporate won't allow managers to ban rude people, even if they're frequently rude (especially if they're frequently rude, since that means they're repeat customers). Managers/employees tend to learn that they just have to take it or else risk their jobs. Anecdotally, I was almost fired from a restaurant management position because a customer threw food at me, knocking my glasses off my face, and I instinctively reacted by throwing food back at her. Poor reaction on my part, but it all happened fast enough I had next to no control over how I responded.

TommyG663513 posted...

Calling a worker the N word should be an easy thing to ban a customer for.

This was probably the first time he did that. The manager asked him not to call him that, and he blatantly did it again. The manager's response at that point was a flash of anger/violence: a crime of passion.

He definitely could use some slight anger management, I'm glad justice was served and the law worked for this citizen.

TheOtherMike posted...

Generally corporate won't allow managers to ban rude people, even if they're frequently rude (especially if they're frequently rude, since that means they're repeat customers). Managers/employees tend to learn that they just have to take it or else risk their jobs. Anecdotally, I was almost fired from a restaurant management position because a customer threw food at me, knocking my glasses off my face, and I instinctively reacted by throwing food back at her. Poor reaction on my part, but it all happened fast enough I had next to no control over how I responded.

This was probably the first time he did that. The manager asked him not to call him that, and he blatantly did it again. The manager's response at that point was a flash of anger/violence: a crime of passion.

Yeah and instead of the crime of passion he should have asked the guy to leave. End of story.

I think a lot of people are really underselling what a profoundly stupid thing punching an elderly man was.

You can acknowledge the awfulness that was everything that old man said and did and still sat how stupid it was to assault him.

I mean, the guy is now a felon. Hard to say he couldn't have handled it a lot better. Things are bad for him although I'd argue they should be much worse.

Conservatives be like "Why can't people show compassion for racist assholes like they show compassion for people who aren't racist assholes?"

Its Florida people. That retired cop got away with shooting a man who threw popcorn in his face. He didn't even get probation.

This guy probably wouldn't even have house arrest if he was white.

Talk shit, get hit

Rule is as old as time itself.

RenescoStCewl posted...

Its Florida people. That retired cop got away with shooting a man who threw popcorn in his face. He didn't even get probation.

This guy probably wouldn't even have house arrest if he was white.

In this scenario, I can't imagine whatever hypothetical thing the old man says to a white person to make him angry enough to throw a KO punch resulting in death would be deemed hurtful/heinous enough to make a jury think house arrest was a fair sentence. Maybe if he was gay and he used a homophobic slur? I feel like nothing else carries the weight of the N word directed at a black person.

TommyG663513 posted...

Yeah and instead of the crime of passion he should have asked the guy to leave. End of story.

You don't understand what a crime of passion is.

haloiscoolisbak posted...

In this scenario, I can't imagine whatever hypothetical thing the old man says to a white person to make him angry enough to throw a KO punch resulting in death would be deemed hurtful/heinous enough to make a jury think house arrest was a fair sentence. Maybe if he was gay and he used a homophobic slur? I feel like nothing else carries the weight of the N word directed at a black person.

Don't think a jury was involved here. He pled guilty to felony assault as a plea deal and the judge determined the sentence.

This is a sentence for felony assault. Not manslaughter or murder and this sentence seems very reasonable for that.

TheOtherMike posted...

Relevant exerpt for those suggesting the manager deserves a harsher sentence. The prosecutors even understand that the victim's attitude was overly aggressive and he had a history there. Dude had a history of starting shit at the store and had a criminal record. The manager didn't have a criminal record and clearly didn't intend to kill the guy. This was obviously a crime of passion in response to the victim's own constantly aggressive attitude. They're looking at the totality of events and circumstances, rather than observing this one incident in a vacuum.

So the manager had been harassed repeatedly over a period of time then. I can see how this muddies things a bit. I had wondered why this sentence seemed so lenient. That fact explains it a bit.

Boy have times changed.

Jiek_Fafn posted...

So the manager had been harassed repeatedly over a period of time then. I can see how this muddies things a bit. I had wondered why this sentence seemed so lenient. That fact explains it a bit.

Employees at that place will be talking about this manager for years. He will become legend in those parts