Here’s a story that’s causing some degree of controversy. It involves a McDonald’s worker, Rayon McIntosh a recently released felon on parole after serving 10 years for manslaughter and that of two 24 year old female customers who suddenly decide without provocation to jump the counter separating the cashier, McIntosh, and the two customers, Denise Darbeau and Rachel Edwards and attack him, before he in turn returns the assaults and then some. The then some part if you haven’t guessed it yet is what is causing the outcry.
It all begins when the girls turn to pay for their meal, they take out a $50 note, and give it to Mr McIntosh who then proceeds as is company policy to check if it is fake. Offended, the women start screaming and cursing at McIntosh, before deciding to both jump the counter and physically assault him.
As they begin hitting him, Mr McIntosh reaches for a metal pole/baseball bat (which begs the question, why would Mr McIntosh be carrying such an item in the first place, especially to work, or was this just something that found its way near Mr McIntosh’s person by sheer coincidence?) and begins to violently hit both women. As the video shows, customers begin pleading with Mr McIntosh to stop as he continues meting out swing after swing after swing (I am not exaggerating) on the girls who by now are on the ground. Apparently so vicious was his response that one of the girls has been said to be possibly be now facing possible permanent brain damage.
At present Mr McIntosh has been arrested and being held at the Manhattan Detention Complex on charges of felony assault with bail set at $40 000. The girls for their part have been charged with menacing, trespass and disorderly conduct.
All of which raises the following questions? Why did the two women react the way they did to Mr McIntosh’s gesture of scanning the $50 note? Didn’t they understand it was company policy or was there something else happening between these three that the video doesn’t show or was it simply a case of two young women bent on acting out with hostility and a hapless cashier worker simply defending himself?
On the surface one can sympathize with the cashier (who already has a thankless and unenviable job, but that really has nothing to do with the customers) who most probably finds himself continuously subjected to demeaning recriminations from highly strung customers and the demands of a low paying job in the fast food industry. That said, watching the video and the constant swings he takes at these women who are on the ground, the viewer is left wondering if Mr McIntosh is relishing in this and on some level actively taking the role of aggressor?
At some point Mr McIntosh could have responded by seeking the attention of the manager to disengage the two women, plead the assistance of fellow workers to subdue the women or as he chose, continue physically engaging his unarned attackers. What becomes extremely problematic is the cashier’s belligerent repeated beating of these two girls who are now on the floor, soundly knocked off guard and the screaming of customers who by now are fully aware that Mr McIntosh has entered no man’s territory where for a moment we could see him being the victim but now we are left aghast as he takes on the very active role of attacker himself.
Whether this is a reflection of a personal fault on behalf of Mr McIntosh, the conditioning that comes courtesy of a ten year stint in jail, the degenerative aura that comes from visiting an impersonal fast food vendor or simply the unresolved trauma of a man who has somehow confused and armed himself against what he perceives to be a hostile world is up for debate. But what oughtn’t be up for debate is the very serious nature of these two girl’s injuries.
Damn straight
Are you kidding me? He DEFENDED HIMSELF! Those girls deserved the beating they got and how dare you attempt to insinuated anything else. His criminal past has nothing to do with this particular incident. If I was in his place I would’ve done the same thing. So you can take your attempts on painting him as the “assailant” in this particular case and shove it!
It is great to see the comments are always nearly unanimously in defense of the cashier…. Seriously… they clearly attacked him.
The pole/baseball bat this article describes is a metal bar used for cleaning the grill is mcdonald. It found it’s way into rayons hands as he grabbed it from beside the grill after being chased there by his two assailants. he did not bring it in to work with him as this article implies.
He was attacked by two peole, until they are immobilized his life is in danger. He should not take chance and assumed they will not be arm or try to come after him if they get up. Anybody knows that a wounded animal is very dangerous, so are wounded people. He used just enough force to make sure he was no longer in danger. And yes it does usually takes a great deal of force to incapacitate someone.
The poor ‘girls’. They took offense that their hard earned $50 bill wasn’t accepted without question and jumped the counter after accidentally slapping the face of Rayon McIntosh to see if he was ok and to ask for his forgiveness. Then totally unprovoked this ex con attacked them with a metal rod/baseball bat that he fashioned in the prison metal shop where he served 10 years for manslaughter. While the customers in McDonalds begged this ex con to stop beating the poor girls, he cruelly ignored the frightened customers’ pleas for mercy and continued to beat the young innocents as they lay on the greasy, dirty floor begging for the miscreant McIntosh to stop his unprovoked attack. The criminal justice system will soon put this boil on the butt of society back where he belongs. Hopefully McDonalds will reward the young girls with a hefty monetary reward and free happy meals for the rest of their lives. At least that’s how I see the whole, ugly incident.
When those women threatened, menaced and pursued that man, he was well within his right to defend himself. The reason McDonald’s is not backing their employee is because the court of public opinion influenced their decision and because by doing so, they may admit their own culpability in fostering an unsafe work environment. I hope that Rayvon sues. They should have had Security in place to deter such incidents. Just 3 months ago, a gay kid was beaten by a gang of thugs in that very same McDonalds. Were I Rayvon’s lawyer in the civil suit, I’d be sure to point this out, as well. As another person commented, your bias shows through your writing. Clearly, in the video, Mr. McIntosh is seen retreating from the advancing women and picks up the rod as he is backpedaling. You presume that he brought this weapon to work with forethought and malice, yet I’d be willing to bet that when the facts of the case are presented, we’ll see that the weapon was a makeshift one and was in fact a work-related implement he reached for spontaneously out of desperation. Also, your allusion to Mr. McIntosh relishing his eventually having the upper hand bears has little to do with the law. He was harassed, menaced and threatened by two women who went out their way to pursue him in a hostile manner in his work space–an are they were not unauthorized to be in. When an attacker is violent, who are we to second guess someone’s defense of himself? If these two women lunged at a White Police Officer, with no felony conviction, I’m guessing all of these people with who are demonizing Mr. McIntosh would defend that Officer’s decision to shoot to kill. These TWO assailants are still alive and I think that Mr. McIntosh’s response was appropriate and even quite merciful.
***SO LET’S CHANGE THE CHARACTERS UP A LITTLE: If Worker dude were a White Male-he would have been deemed a fucking HERO! AND THE GIRLS WOUld have had a gazillion charges on them. How is it that HE got locked up and charged for anything? Here’s what I know-if you go fucking with people, you may not get the response you were looking for. Break in someone’s house and YOU get shot, You got what you deserved. These girls were retarded, they could have been killed. You don’t do dumb shit like this. Their parents should have taught them better than this–Was anyone teaching them Anything??? There is no way this guy should be in jail. They fucking JUMPED over the frickin counter…any1 would think they were getting robbed or maybe these people are going to try to kill me–How is it that YOU get locked up for defending yourself? That shit is backwards & you need to free him and drop the charges and apologize to him. It’s clearly self-defense & those stupid girls F_cked with the wrong dude! Kuddos to him. Also, so- called BADASSES..take heed! You could be next ..fuckin with the wrong person!!!
It is sad, how his past is automatically introduce. Once a person has serve their sentence and is suppose to be reformed. Here is was working for minimum wage. It was the managers duty to intervene as most fast food chain do not accept and bills larger than a twenty. It was the managers responsibility to perform the scanning if thats the approach he wanted the take. McIntosh was yelled at, slapped yet that did not stop these women, who appeared to have forgotten that they were women and that this was not lady like. They jumped over the counter and continued to assault him. He had no choice but to defend himself, yes his passion was fuel, as it became a crime of passion as the women did not stop even though they were on the floor. If they were beating so badly they would have surrendered. The author of the article is very bias, hopefully they or any members of their family will never be subjected to this type of incident
Those 2 lesbians were a mess.
It was a grill scraper, from what former McDonald’s employees have told me. That’s why it was readily available there. Second, he tried to walk away. Third, nobody was stopping those women from attacking him. He told them to stay down, and they continually got up to try to keep attacking him. That’s why he continued to smack them down. They had it coming.
Hopefully the author of this entry gets a quick beating with the justice stick. Even at our angle we can see one of the women try to get back up. You blind bastard.
A couple of quick notes:
1. The “baseball bat” mentioned in the article was actually a metal rod used to clean the grill. It happened to be in the back. Rayon was not carrying it around with him.
2. The manager was already involved in the incident, and the two women were screaming at him as well. When the manager went to intercept a drunk woman (who was not part of this incident otherwise) trying to use the restaurant’s bathroom, one of the women threatened to attack him.
3. Witnesses have stated that Rayon repeatedly told his attackers to stay down, and swing the rod only when they refused to listen and kept trying to get back up.
All of this has already been reported on. I realize that much of the media has portrayed this in the most biased manner possible, but it only takes a few moments of research to find the truth.
I think this “writer” needs to learn how to use the SPELL CHECK button, or at least some proof reading.. the mistakes really take away from this poorly written article..
I agree with all the previous written comments.. These women need to be getting a little more slap on the wrist than just their “disorderly conduct” charges.. The women assaulted him, they were trespassing in the back (employee only) of McDonalds.. how could you possibly think these women have any ground to stand on?
Here’s a good tip for you, Mr. “Scallywag”, if you’re going to defend these outrageous women, do some in-depth reporting — I’d bet ya that the 50 they tried to pay with WAS actually a fake.
They tried to STEAL from McDonalds, and they were mad because they got caught. Now look at them. They’re going to get a fortune for suing McDonalds.
Great nonpartisan reporting. You decided to make it a story to talk of the worker as one who “was recently released felon on parole after serving 10 years for manslaughter”….. before you even got to the actual news story of the assault itself.
If you were a real journalist or writer, you’d have easily realized that is something you mention later into the discussion, it is not necessary to start the article off with that fact. Unless you are strongly trying to sway the reader early into picking a side…. in this case against the cashier.
You have an ocean of things to still learn about journalism. Not to mention on grammar and your serious flaw in sentence structure in your introduction.
To the irrational writer of this article, why are you hiding and too afraid to write under your own name? Because you don’t want people to know the title to such idiocy…. ? You are one person profoundly oblivious and lost in ignorance. wow
Dear Journalist,
Please take off your Stevie Wonder sunglasses, RE-REVIEW the video then re-write your story
These girls got exactly what they deserved. You put yourself in a man’s position, you gonna get treated like a man. I dont condone hitting women but these girls where not acting like women. If they would have just took there money back since they was so offended by the cashier checking it and left the restaurant than none of this would have happended. BUT…..everybody wants to be a thug these days. Perfect example of when keepin it real goes wrong. I just love how the girls only got charged with menacing, trespassing and disorderly conduct which will all be reduced to misdemeanors.
These Women did the First and Second Moves before the man Reacted, If you watch the Video closely These Women were getting Back Up after the First Defensive Move on the Man. When Someone was Yelling Stop That’s when these Two Women were Getting back Up LOOK AT THE VIDEO CLOSE So He Hit them again in Fear of his Life Because these Two Women Wanted To Hurt This Poor Guy Before he did anything TWO AGAINST ONE what was he supposed to do They Slapped Him and Jumped the Counter and Cornered Him. Corner a Animal and watch what happens. He Used RESTRAINT Than he had no CHOICE LEFT and I bet these 2 Women Have been in Trouble with the Law Check Their Backgrounds!
The author must live in Mayberry, Did the author not see the two women yell scream slap and strike him first. Did you not see him run away? Did you Not see them jump over the counter to attack him ? Maybe they chased to bring him a Teddy Bear? Maybe the author believes their intent was hugs and kisses? After being cornered Rayon defended himself with the first thing he could get his hands on. His defense lasted 4 seconds. Maybe the author did not see her head pop up over the counter, when he hit hit them the second time?
How many people have their face sliced open, with a razor or even a finger nail? He could have been stabbed in the neck with car keys? This is clear Self Defense!