“She has this baseball bat-sized stick … and she’s overhead smashing it on top of a counter,” Luca Opperman, 20, recalled
Credit: Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Luca Opperman, 20, is being praised as a hero after he used a spatula to defend In-N-Out employees against a woman allegedly yelling and chasing them with a wooden stick
- “She has this baseball bat-sized stick … and she’s overhead smashing it on top of a counter,” he recalled
- In-N-Out and social media users praised the California college student’s bravery, calling him a “small town hero”
A California man is being praised as a hero after he used a spatula to defend employees of an In-N-Out Burger from a woman allegedly threatening them with a large wooden stick.
The Los Angeles Times and KTLA reported that the Wednesday, Sept. 2, incident first came to light when a bystander shared a video of the incident. The Instagram video, taken at the fast food chain location in Lake Elsinore, Calif., shows a woman wielding a large stick as a man speaks with her and follows her around the restaurant.
The bystander said in the clip that she was waiting in the drive-through line when a woman in the restaurant allegedly began yelling at In-N-Out employees and chased them into a back room of the restaurant. A man then intervened, the bystander said, and he can be seen holding a spatula as he confronts her.
The man, identified by the outlets as 20-year-old Luca Opperman, said that the confrontation broke out just before 1 a.m. on Wednesday.
He had just placed an order in the drive-through and pulled up to the window to pick up his food when he heard a “super loud banging noise,” he told the outlets.
Credit: Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty
“I look up and just see this lady, she has this baseball bat-sized stick, basically like a tree branch, and she’s overhead smashing it on top of a counter,” he told the Times.
The 20-year-old — who is a college student and former gymnast, rugby player and parkour teacher who now does freestyle trampolining — opted to jump through the drive-through window and grabbed a spatula, the first thing he saw on a nearby counter.
“Thinking about it now, I probably would have been better off with a fryer basket, but it happened so fast,” he told the Times.
Opperman said he yelled at the woman to leave, but she allegedly entered the kitchen and started walking toward the employees who were in the back.
The bystander described Opperman as moving like Spider-Man or Jackie Chan.
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“He gets out of his car, and he jumps through the window like he’s Spider-Man moves or, like, does this Jackie Chan move feet-first through the window,” the bystander said of Opperman in her Instagram video. “And he starts battling this lady with a stick, who she had chased, I guess, all the staff into some back room.”
“This kid, like, totally saved the day,” she added.
Opperman said the woman swung her stick at him while he was holding the spatula.
“I’m holding the spatula, wielding my spatula and yelling at her, ‘Get out of here! Get out of here!’ ” Opperman recalled to KTLA.
She turned away from him at one point, which gave him to opportunity to “shoulder drop” her and grab the stick, he told the outlets.
Deputies from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the scene by about 12:45 a.m., Lt. Deirdre Vickers told PEOPLE in a statement.
Officials said that “a good Samaritan was able to disarm the suspect, who ultimately exited the business.” Deputies then detained the woman — identified by the Times as 53-year-old Antonieta Sanchez of Redlands, Calif. — without further incident.
No injuries were reported, and the suspect was booked on suspicion of felony vandalism and brandishing a weapon, the sheriff’s office said.
According to Opperman, he wanted to take action during the tense encounter as he had experiencing working in the fast food industry.
“I know In-N-Out employees get paid decent, but they don’t get paid well enough to get attacked by a crazy lady with a stick,” he told the Times. “It’s something where I’ve got to stand up for my fellow brothers, that type of feeling.”
“If I didn’t step in, right there and then, I knew that somebody could have gotten hurt,” he added to KTLA. “Anyone who goes to a restaurant waving around a wooden baseball bat, saying, ‘Call the cops,’ and just coming in there looking for trouble, you’re gonna find trouble. And you found me that night.”
Social media users — as well as In-N-Out — praised the college student for his actions.
“Small town hero alert,” stated the caption of the bystander’s video. “He was ready to do what he had to do with that spatula.”
“We are thankful that one of our customers bravely intervened to ensure the safety of everyone nearby,” In-N-Out’s Chief Operating Officer Denny Warnick added to the Times. “We applaud his selflessness and quick thinking, and we’ve been able to share our gratitude with him.”
Despite the praise, Opperman shared that he felt the incident was just a matter of circumstance.
“Everything I’ve read has been positive, it’s all been, like, I did a good job, people asking me if I’ve taken karate or martial arts,” he told the Times. “But I feel like what I did was more being in the right place at the right time.”
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