One armed McDonald’s customer is being hailed as a “hero” after he fired back at a gunman while leaving the restaurant with his children, likely saving the lives of other customers and employees.
In a McDonald’s in Birmingham, Alabama, a masked gunman entered the restaurant and opened fire. At the same time as the gunman entered the restaurant, a father and his sons were leaving, but the father stopped as soon as he heard the gunshots.
The father turned around and fired back at the gunman, killing him. Both the father and one of his sons suffered non-life threatening injuries in the shooting, according to WBRC.
When the shooting began, McDonald’s employee Markus Washington quickly jumped into the freezer with several other employees to hide from the gunman.
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“I was making two quarter-pounders and heard three shots ring, and then exchange of gunfire two more,” Washington explained to WBRC, adding, “All we hear is like different gunfire, so in my mind, I’m imagining everybody is dead. He’s looking for us.”
Luckily, the armed customer was able to stop the shooter, saving the lives of those inside the restaurant. Washington acknowledged that he may not have survived if it weren’t for the armed patron.
“I’m feeling grateful,” said Washington, “He’s my hero because I can only imagine how it would’ve went if he wasn’t armed. We might not be here having this interview.”
This shooting in Birmingham occurred on the same day as the horrific attack in Pittsburgh that claimed the lives of 11 members of the Tree of Life Synagogue. Several others, including four police officers, were also injured in the attack.
Following the attack in Pittsburgh, President Donald Trump faced criticism for suggesting that gun laws had “little to do” with the shooting. The president claimed that adding armed security to the vulnerable targets could prevent or mitigate mass shootings.
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“Has little to do with [gun laws] if you take a look. If they had better protection inside the results would have been far better. This is a dispute that will always exist, I suspect, if they had some kind of protection inside the temple, maybe it could have been a very much different situation. […] So this would be a case for if there was an armed guard, they would have been able to stop him. Maybe there would have been nobody killed, except for him frankly.”
Trump’s call for increased security and protection of gun laws may be unpopular, but a law-abiding gun owner did save lives in this case.