“[Anita] Grayson, not Employee 1, escalated the encounter to violence,” the Allen County Prosecutor’s Office in Indiana said in a report
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NEED TO KNOW
- Anita Grayson, 75, died after a physical altercation with an employee at a Tim Hortons in Indiana on May 13
- The Allen County Prosecutor’s Office determined that “criminal charges will not be filed” as a result of the incident
- “We have given this case a fair and thorough review, and evaluated it on the evidence and the law, the same standard we apply to every case that comes before this office,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement
An employee at an Indiana Tim Hortons will not face criminal charges after a 75-year-old mom died following a physical altercation with the worker at the fast-food restaurant.
Three months after Anita Grayson died of acute exacerbation of congestive heart failure following an altercation with an employee at the Tim Hortons in Fort Wayne, the Allen County Prosecutor’s Office determined that “criminal charges will not be filed” as a result of the incident.
“This is a heartbreaking situation for everyone involved and especially for Ms. Grayson’s family,” officials wrote in a social media statement. “We have given this case a fair and thorough review, and evaluated it on the evidence and the law, the same standard we apply to every case that comes before this office.”
In a report outlining the evidence reviewed — including security footage, 911 recordings, dispatch records, witness reports and more — the prosecutor’s office stated that, on May 13, Grayson ordered food through the drive-thru window before returning approximately seven minutes later to dispute the order at the front counter.
Upon her return, a verbal exchange between Grayson and a 17-year-old employee escalated before a second employee (Employee 1) stepped between them to defend the minor.
“The confrontation turned physical: Grayson shoved and struck Employee 1, the two fell to the floor and continued struggling and coworkers separated them,” the report read. After officers arrived at the scene, Grayson “was evaluated and treated inside the restaurant before being transported to a hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.”
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Surveillance footage from inside the store later confirmed that Grayson was the first to push and strike the first employee before they both fell and grappled on the floor, per the report. The four employee witnesses and the customer witness who were interviewed separately also gave accounts that aligned with each other and with the video.
In her witness statement, the adult employee claimed that Grayson called her a “little white bitch” before attempting to swing around her toward the minor employee. After she placed both hands on the customer’s shoulders to keep her back, Grayson allegedly punched her in the face, grabbed her hair and pulled her through the employee doors.
Investigators later observed that the employee had bruising, facial scratches and a substantial area of hair forcibly pulled from her scalp.
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After the altercation, the juvenile employee recalled that Grayson appeared to lower herself to the floor in the dining area. They did not believe Grayson collapsed involuntarily, per the report.
“[Employee 1] was later advised that Grayson had gone to the floor, and said she personally observed Grayson appearing to have what she described as a seizure,” the report detailed. “When coworkers offered water, Grayson told them to leave her alone.”
Following Grayson’s death, the coroner’s certification of her manner of death was undetermined after concluding that she sustained no significant contributory injuries. Therefore, the medical examiner could not “say with reasonable medical certainty that the altercation caused her death rather than her preexisting congestive heart failure running its course under stress.”
Since the State could not disprove the justification defense beyond a reasonable doubt, the evidence resulted in the decision that no criminal charges would be filed against the fast-food employees.
“Grayson, not Employee 1, escalated the encounter to violence, and did so disproportionately to the minimal contact that preceded it,” the report stated. “Employee 1’s use of force was justified first as defense of a minor coworker and then self-defense, and it did not exceed what the ongoing struggle reasonably called for.”
“Nor does the record establish that any conduct at the restaurant caused Grayson’s death to the degree of certainty the law requires,” the report concluded. “Under Indiana law, the State cannot proceed unless it can disprove legal justification beyond a reasonable doubt, and on this record it cannot.”
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