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Police arrested a California man accused of punching a fast-food worker, causing her to lose her right eye

habit burger grill
The Habit Burger Grill is offering pay from $14.25 to $17.75 an hour for new employees as signs around the region are getting the cold shoulder from workers reluctant to resume service-industry jobs in Riverside on Monday, July 5, 2021. Terry Pierson/The Press-Enterprise via Getty Images

  • California authorities have arrested a man who punched a fast-food employee, taking out her eye.
  • Isaac White-Carter faces felony charges of mayhem and aggravated assault causing great bodily injury.
  • Bianca Palomera, the Habit Burger employee, said the man had been bullying a boy.
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Police in Antioch, California, have arrested a man accused of punching a fast-food employee in the face, causing her to lose her right eye, after she defended a young boy from being bullied.

Isaac White-Carter, 20, was arrested on Monday and faces felony charges of mayhem and aggravated assault causing great bodily injury, the Antioch Police Department said in a statement. It's unclear whether White-Carter has made a plea or retained an attorney.

Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe said in a video statement that 19-year-old Habit Burger employee Bianca Palomera had been "viciously assaulted" on November 12 and that White-Carter landed the blow that eventually caused Palomera to lose her eye.

Palomera said in her Fox affiliate interview that the incident began when she saw a man enter the Habit Burger and immediately begin bullying the boy. She intervened, and surveillance footage obtained from the fast food restaurant showed the assailant punching Palomera at least twice.

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"I just remember grabbing my eye — I thought I was crying at first," Palomera told local Fox affiliate KTVU FOX. "But then after, I saw I had blood dripping down my shirt and down my cheek."

The alleged assault on Palomera is just the latest in a series of recent attacks against fast-food workers nationwide. A number of news stories in recent months have documented incidents in which employees — often young people — have been verbally and physically abused, and even threatened with weapons. Often, the attacks stemmed from disputes over fast-food orders.

In Antioch, the same city Palomera was attacked in, a 16-year-old Jack in the Box employee was recently slammed to the ground and stomped on by a couple who complained about a hair in their food. Over the summer, three customers trashed a Manhattan restaurant, threw glass bottles and a metal stool at employees, and even threatened one worker with a stun gun.

In June, two women complaining about a problem with their order began repeatedly punching a Steak n' Shake worker in Tampa, Florida. And a 17-year-old Burger King employee in Wyoming, Michigan, was punched, kicked, and body-slammed by a customer who was furious over his soda cup being overfilled.

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In Palomera's case, Thorpe said the Antioch Police Department's Special Operations Unit and the US Marshals had been searching for White-Carter for weeks before finally arresting arresting him on December 5.

"Bianca was doing nothing more than standing up for a kid who had special needs," Thorpe said. "And today, she only has one eye. In my book, Bianca is a hero."

Thorpe said he will be bestowing a key to the city to Palomera in a ceremony on December 13. 

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