Jose Juan Rangel and his wife, Maria Vargas Luna, pulled up to a McDonald\u2019s drive-through nearly two years ago to order some food when they were approached by a person asking for change. <\/p>\n
What is a common and usually uneventful interaction in Los Angeles turned into a bloody confrontation with tragic results.<\/p>\n
According to a lawsuit filed by Rangel against McDonald\u2019s last week, he and his wife were attacked by the man and McDonald\u2019s employees failed to intervene or call for help. Luna later died from her injuries. <\/p>\n
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges that on March 9, 2024, McDonald\u2019s employees let Charles Cornelius Green Jr. approach vehicles at a McDonald\u2019s drive-through on North Soto Street near Boyle Heights and ask for money. <\/p>\n
Rangel is seeking unspecified damages.<\/p>\n
Rangel claims Green was a \u201cknown vagrant\u201d who \u201croamed freely around the exterior areas\u201d of the restaurant and \u201cremained in and around the drive-thru lane for at least ten minutes,\u201d according to the lawsuit. Green approached vehicles and asked for money in front of the McDonald\u2019s employees, who didn\u2019t intervene or hire any security personnel for the restaurant, the suit says. <\/p>\n
The owner of the restaurant, Dean Sanchez, responded in a media statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur hearts go out to Mr. Rangel and his family after this tragic incident. We\u2019re a family-owned business that\u2019s deeply committed to safely serving the local community,\u201d Sanchez said. \u201cWhile we\u2019re unable to comment further at this time due to ongoing litigation, we do not believe the facts support these claims, and we will respond in full through the proper legal channels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Green approached Rangel\u2019s car and lunged at him, hitting him repeatedly in the face, according to the lawsuit. The McDonald\u2019s employees saw what happened but didn\u2019t call 911 or take any action to respond, the lawsuit alleges. <\/p>\n
The suit states that Green also then tried to attack Rangel\u2019s wife, Luna, who was partially blind and was sitting in the passenger seat of the car. Rangel says he got out of the car to protect her and Green wrestled him, hitting him and forcing him to the ground. <\/p>\n
Luna got out of the car to try to help Rangel and that\u2019s when, according to the lawsuit, Green pushed her to the ground, resulting in her head hitting the asphalt. Luna then went into cardiac arrest. She also suffered severe head trauma and brain damage, the suit states. <\/p>\n
Law enforcement arrived only after Luna was already unconscious on the ground, according to the lawsuit. <\/p>\n
She remained on life support for months before succumbing to her injuries, according to the suit. <\/p>\n
Rangel alleges that the McDonald\u2019s restaurant is in an area with \u201cfrequent criminal activity and frequent police responses.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cDefendants had the means and responsibility to prevent this tragedy,\u201d the lawsuit says, \u201cbut this business location is notorious in the community for ignoring the safety of its paying customers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jose Juan Rangel and his wife, Maria Vargas Luna, pulled up to a McDonald\u2019s drive-through nearly two years…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":518687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2332,135389,13941,49662,7007,18572,231102,2961,379,224,5337,54116,6459,231103,8463,27754,231104,18913],"class_list":{"0":"post-518686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-car","11":"tag-drive-through","12":"tag-employee","13":"tag-fast-food-chain","14":"tag-green","15":"tag-ground","16":"tag-l-a-mcdonald","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-lawsuit","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-losangeles","21":"tag-luna","22":"tag-money","23":"tag-rangel","24":"tag-restaurant","25":"tag-suit","26":"tag-widower","27":"tag-wife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115900927529917446","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}