OKALOOSA COUNTY, Fla. – A Chick-fil-A employee went from serving to saving during an attempted carjacking outside a Florida restaurant.
A portion of the employee’s tussle with the carjacking suspect was captured on video. You can watch that video in the player at the top of this article.
William Branch, 43, was wielding a stick when he approached a mother who was getting her infant out of her car in the parking lot of a Chick-fil-A in Fort Walton Beach, Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office deputies said in a press release.
Branch demanded the woman’s keys, grabbed them from the waistband of the woman’s pants, opened her car door and got inside her vehicle.
Deputies said the woman then began screaming for help and that’s when the Chick-fil-A employee, Mykel Gordon, ran to help.
A bystander captured video of Gordon running to intervene and tackling Branch to the ground as a second woman, who was holding a baby in her arms, screams “somebody help.”
Several bystanders run to aid Gordon but by that point, he already had Branch in a headlock and was holding him down.
Branch managed to punch Gordon in the face during the incident but the employee was not seriously injured, according to deputies.
After the tussle, Gordon can be seen placing his hands on Branch who just sits on the ground and doesn’t fight back.
The woman who screamed for help then comes into view and yells at Branch saying “she had a baby in her hands. How dare you. How dare you scare her like that.”
The sheriff’s office said Branch was involved in another incident shortly before the carjacking attempt, but deputies didn’t say what that incident involved.
Deputies praised Gordon in a Facebook post following the incident saying “a major shout-out to this young man for his courage!”