Violent Attacks, Shootings, Robberies Mark Dangerous Year in Service Industry

Houston, TX (WorkersCompensation.com) – A former employee attacked a Houston, Texas Smoothie King manager Dec. 13, topping off a dangerous year for workers in the food and retail industries.  

Houston police said Keshia Lynette Christmas, 34, attacked her manager when the woman informed her that she had been fired. Christmas had several write-ups for being late to work. When she came to the store with her daughter to pick up her check, the manager told her she’d been fired.  

According to charging documents, Christmas began yelling and demanded the manager get her last paycheck. When the manager returned with the check, Christmas allegedly grabbed her by the neck and slammed her against a wall.  

Police said that while Christmas’ daughter screamed at her to let the woman go, Christmas allegedly told the manager, “You’re not going to ruin my Christmas.” The woman then demanded money from the manager, walking her across the street to a nearby ATM and forcing her to withdrawal money while she held the manager’s iPhone. Christmas threatened to throw the woman into oncoming traffic if she tried to run.  

After the manager withdrew $200, she gave it to Christmas who threw the manager’s iPhone back at her. The manager, who has not been named, said that Christmas also stole $7 from the manager’s purse, $34 from the store’s safe and $40 from the store’s cash register.  

The year was a particularly dangerous one for the service industry. Incidents ranged from shootings over corn to employees attacking their co-workers over spurned advances.  

In November, a man shot into a St. Louis KFC after the restaurant informed him they were out of corn.  

Police said the man, described as a black man in his 40s, placed his order at the drive-thru, but when an employee told him the restaurant was out of corn, the suspect threatened the employee from the speaker box before driving up to the window with a hand gun. When another employee went outside to try to talk to the driver, the man shot him.  

The injured worker was taken to a nearby hospital with serious, but not life-threatening injuries.  

In New York, a McDonald’s employee was shot in the neck after a woman complained of cold French fries.  

Matthew Webb, 23, of Queens was shot outside the restaurant by the son of the complaining woman, Lisa Fulmore.  

Fulmore told police the staff laughed at her when she asked to speak to a manager and that her son said he “got to do what he got to do and the (victim) came after him, and whatever happened, happened.”  

Webb later died of his injuries. Morgan has been charged with attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon.  

According to a report from Service Employees International Union (SEIU), between 2017 and 2020 fast food establishments were the site of more than 77,000 violent incidents in nine major cities in California. The report looked at 9-1-1 logs focusing on calls made from McDonald’s, Burger King, Carl’s Jr., and Jack-in-the-Box locations for calls like assault, theft and verbal threats in the incident descriptions.  

Violent incidents are on the rise in retail establishments as well.  

An investigation by the New York Times looking at FBI data, found that between 2018 and 2020, assaults in grocery stores rose by 63 percent and by 75 percent in convenience stores. Since 2020, violent assaults in the workplace have increased particularly in the retail space, Kenna Carlsen, a research associate with the National Safety Council said.  

In October, a Chesapeake, Va. Walmart manager killed six employees when he opened fire near an employee break room. Officials say the manager, Andre Bing, 31, entered the store at shift change armed with a gun and multiple ammunition magazines. Bing had been employed by the company since 2010.  

Employees have since sued the store saying they brought Bing’s behavior to the attention of store managers several times.  

In March, two Museum of Modern Art employees in New York City were stabbed when they approached a visitor to the museum. The workers approached Gary Cabana, 60, to tell him that his membership had been rescinded because of his behavior. In response, he attacked he employees, stabbing a 24-year-old woman in the back and neck, and stabbing a 24-year-old man in the collar bone.  

In June, a Walgreens employee stabbed a co-worker to death after she refused his advances. Colorado Springs, Col. police said Joshua Taylor Johnson, 28 was arrested in connection with the death of Riley Whitelaw, 17. Prior to the attack, Whitelaw had told store management that Johnson had made advances toward her and that she did not want to work the same schedule as him, which management accommodated. When Whitelaw asked for more hours, she was told she would have to work with Johnson.  

On the day of the attack, Johnson allegedly stacked boxes in the break room of their store and taped paper over the windows to obstruct the view into the room. Around 6:55 pm., a manager called the store to report that Whitelaw had been found in the break room with multiple stab wounds.  

Employers can take a number of steps to protect employees, Carlsen said.  

"The most essential step you can take to protect your employees is having a really strong workplace violence policy in place," Carlsen says. "That should tell employees what is considered violence, what their rights are, and what resources are available to them if they are a victim." 

Carlsen recommends employers check the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s website for workplace violence resources to create effective plans.  

"There is a lot of workplace violence prevention research coming out of the health care space, because that industry sees a high prevalence of violence," she says. "A lot of those recommendations can easily be adapted for a retail setting." 

Additionally, she said, employers can increase employee training and communication, as well as increase surveillance and violence prevention technology, like universal CCTV, or even advanced AI monitoring software that can look for “red flag behaviors” and then automatically notify the authorities.  

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