‘I was literally shaking’: Drive-thru shooting shocks Chick-fil-A customers
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Shocked customers watched in the drive-thru at an Augusta Chick-fil-A when a driver shot at a homeless man who tried to get into his car.
No one was hurt, but the homeless man was arrested and customers’ nerves were rattled.
The drama unfolded around 6 p.m. Wednesday at 3130 Peach Orchard Road.
A few cars back from the shooting was Crystal Gillece, who went to Chick-fil-A for dinner – with it being cold, she “really wanted chicken noodle soup.”
Plans took a turn when Gillece heard a gunshot.
“There was a pop. And I looked at my fiancé and I said, ‘Was that a gunshot?’ and he’s like, ‘No, I was it was too low. It was kind of like silenced.’ This Chick-fil-A employee with the dustpan and broom was completely shocked, pale in his face running around the corner saying, ‘There were shots, there were shots.’”
Initial fears ran through her head.
“I was in my car but I was literally shaking,” Gillece said.
She said managers insisted anyone outside come inside.
In her car, Gillece turned the corner to see “the homeless man laying on the ground with me and there was two customers on that side by the drive thru. One of the men had a gun drawn on him,” she said. “Actually seeing that man laying there that was that was an eye opener.”
The shooting happened after Maximilian Childs, 53, who is homeless, approached the drive-thru attendant asking for ice. The attendant felt uncomfortable so he created distance by going around a car.
Childs walked around to the vehicle’s open enger window and tried to climb through it, the driver told deputies.
The driver pulled out his handgun and shot once, striking the enger door but not through it, authorities say.
Childs ran to the back of the vehicle and lay on the ground while the driver held him at gunpoint, according to authorities.
When asked why he entered the vehicle, Childs responded that he was hungry.
Childs was taken to jail and charged with simple assault and criminal tres.
Gillece said Thursday that being that close to a shooting hadn’t set in yet.
“Did that really happen last night? I was actually there and it really happened,” she said. “Just being that close to it it was very sketchy and like an unsafe feeling.”
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She ended up going somewhere else for dinner, but returned to see what happened.
“There was all kind of Richmond County unmarked cars. A firetruck was there, ambulances there,” she said. “There was a Richmond County car blocking the exit of the drive-thru on the side of McDonald’s where you come out and some cops on the other side of the entrance where you go into Chick-fil-A.”
Gillece says now that with the weather getting cold, you have to remain vigilant.
“People do need to be safe and watch out but same time it’s kind of different for them because they are homeless and it is getting cold,” she said. “Just gotta be careful around our surroundings and everything. It was it was pretty interesting night last night.”
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