Recently in Auburn, a man attempted to abduct a barista through a drive-through. There is camera footage showing the barista returning change to the man, but then the man grabbing the barista by the wrist and trying to pull her through the drive-through window. The victim said that the man asked for change so that he could leave her a tip, and she reached out to give it to him. The man is then seen reaching for a “closed loop black color zip tie”, then later he tried to loop the zip tie around the victim’s head while grabbing onto the worker’s hand, trying to pull her outside of the window. Thankfully the suspect barely missed and lost his grip. The barista pulled back quickly and shut her window. The man drove off quickly right after.

The barista was able to identify the man who attempted to kidnap her. Thankfully suspect Matthew William Darnell is in police custody due to the evidence including the camera footage, and a black color looped zip tie on the ground by the passenger side. The suspect pleads not guilty and is being held on bail for $500,000. Many customer service workers have been endangered as of recently due to a new threat as exemplified by this incident. This raises a question of how we can create more safety precautions to avoid incidents to help protect the safety of workers.