7 hours ago
1
A good guy with a spatula saved the entire crew of a Southern California In-N-Out restaurant from a customer accused of threatening them.
The incident happened at the outlet in Lake Elsinore when 20-year-old Luca Opperman was waiting in the drive-thru and heard someone yelling from inside the building, KTLA reported Friday.
He saw a woman with what he described as a baseball bat and decided to take action. Opperman, a former gymnast and freestyle trampoline athlete with amazing skills, launched himself feet first through the drive-thru window to confront the woman.
Video footage showed Opperman try to take the stick away from the woman but she snatched it away from him. However, he did not give up and stood his ground. Moments later, the woman moved out of the camera’s view and Opperman bent over and ran towards her:
Opperman had grabbed a metal spatula to confront the woman and said that during the confrontation “I’m holding the spatula, wielding my spatula and yelling at her, ‘Get out of here! Get out of here!'”
When she refused to back down, Opperman said “That’s when you see me go in with the shoulder drop. I checked her. I grabbed the stick. This was a stick the size of a baseball bat, and the other end was snapped off, so it had a thick sharp end and edges.”
The young man said he was finally able to grab the stick and no one was hurt during the altercation. Police arrested the suspect, identified as 53-year-old Antonieta Sanchez, for brandishing a weapon and felony vandalism.
A witness said the scene unfolded when the woman allegedly became upset that restaurant workers were not making her burger as fast as she wanted.
Opperman is now being labeled a hero for his actions to deescalate the situation and save the employees.
One social media user wrote in part, “Luca is a brave person I hope he gets free In-N-Out burgers for a very long time,” while another person said “Thank you for your courage, young man!”
Yet another user commented, “A real life Spider Man! Hes so agile his gymnastics skills really came in handy at the critical moment. Kudos to this young man for his heroic act!”
Despite the praise he has received, Opperman said he did what he needed to do to make sure everyone was safe.
“If I didn’t step in right there and then, I knew that somebody would have gotten hurt,” he stated.
English (US)