AlaskanAg99 said:

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They're being replaced by robots.

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This is what happens when your ice cream shake machine is always down…

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BadMoonRisin said:

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Since we are doing virtual firing now and AI is becoming increasingly realistic, can I be told I'm being laid off by a top less Jennifer Connelly? It might help slightly ease the blow.

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One of the attackers was sentenced to 90 days in jail for assaulting Ward's male friend. No other arrests were made.

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Police were constantly responding to late-night fights, assaults, and disturbances among huge crowds that were mostly black a problem one top police official called a "drain on resources." Most of the reported incidents, some 200 in the three years preceding Ward and Crisp's deaths, involved black-on-black violence by gang bangers and, according to one police officer, members of black college fraternities. One police report described an unidentified man's head getting bashed against a curb. White patrons appeared to be especially susceptible and at risk -- and when they were attacked, the blows were particularly vicious. The hours of 2-to-3 A.M. on Saturdays and Sundays were especially volatile, with at least a dozen fights and assaults reported during those hours in the year preceding these deaths.

For Ward and Giesen, the trouble started seconds after exiting McDonald's front door. "You're in the wrong neck of the woods, cowboys," Giesen recalled a young black male saying.

Unwittingly, they'd blundered into a highly-charged situation. Shortly before they'd arrived, two black males had gotten into a loud argument inside the restaurant. A gun was brandished. But manager Lindsey Ives didn't call the police. She told the men to take their dispute outside.

In an instant, a bloodthirsty mob was upon them.

A fist slammed into Giesen's face. Ward tried to break-up the altercation, according to trial testimony. Instead, he suffered a brutal mob stomping lasting several minutes. Some 20 young black males closed in -- mercilessly kicking and punching his head and body and even jumping on him after he fell to the ground, witnesses said. Giesen was knocked unconscious.

An athletic young man -- 5-foot-6 and 163 pounds -- Ward had a handsome face framed by a mop of rusty brown hair. But after the beating, one witness -- a retired U.S. Marine and one of a few white customers -- said Ward's face was "really messed up"; was "broken" and "mushy" and "just did not look natural."

Bean and Crisp, both 19, rounded the corner of the drive-through to see the mob stomping. The horrified and frightened young women jumped out of the SUV screaming for it to stop. Crisp, Ward's girlfriend, even rushed into the melee, according to trial testimony. Blood poured from Ward's face. Some nearby good-Samaritans, including a few black females, helped the frantic teens lift their dates into the 4Runner's back seat; Ward was unable to speak or walk. Danisha Stern, a trial witness, then told them to "get out of there . . . it's not safe."

Immediately, the terrified girls took that advice -- rather than waiting for police. Bean, Giesen's date, took the wheel with Crisp occupying the front passenger seat. Speeding away, Bean made a frantic across-town dash for an emergency room. She worried somebody from the McDonald's mob might follow and run her off the road.

Ward was drifting in and out of consciousness. Blood was everywhere. Fearing he was slipping away, Crisp frantically climbed into the back seat, kneeling on the floorboard to do what she could -- pushing him back into his seat when he slumped forward. They had been dating three months. The girls were "freaking out," Giesen recalled. "I remember lots of screaming and yelling going on."

Then -- about 10 minutes after speeding away from University McDonald's -- Bean ran a red light. The 4Runner was hit broadside by a Chevy Silverado pick-up, and then spun violently and crashed into a light pole. Ward and Crisp were pronounced dead at the scene; Bean and the Silverado's five occupants were uninjured. Police initially thought Ward and Crisp had died in the crash, and they had considered charging Bean. But pathologists at the negligence trial, both for the plaintiffs and McDonald's, agreed Ward was beaten to death -- the fatal kicks and punches delivered to the lower back of his head and chin.

The mob at McDonald's grew into a frenzy after the couples fled. A police officer arriving at the scene, five minutes later, grabbed his AR-15 assault rifle when he stepped out of his patrol car, fearing he was amid a full-blown riot. It was, he recalled, like "scenes that we have seen multiple times at that McDonald's."

Crisp, a dark-haired beauty from Dripping Springs, a suburb of Austin, wanted to be a nurse. She was a biology major at Blinn College as was Bean, a resident of College Station. Ward, also a student at the junior college, was set to transfer to Texas A&M the next year to study industrial engineering. He had an all-American background in high school: letters in football and baseball; Little League umpire; and a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He and Crisp were from large families.

Giesen was briefly treated at an emergency room; his abdomen bore a boot print. He now suffers bouts of amnesia due to brain trauma.

In College Station, nobody dared to ask if a "hate crime" had possibly occurred. But Stern, the black good-Samaritan, testified that the black mob had piled on Ward in part because he was white; or as she explained: "He was trying to save his friend or stop the attacks...targeted at his friend. And he was a white male so I guess any -- anything that was -- anybody that was not helping the fight, like, adding to the injury or whatever, was seen as an opponent or something, you know."

Police made only one arrest, charging Marcus Jamal Jones -- known to friends as "Plucky" -- in the mob attack. Without outdoor security cameras and uncooperative witnesses, it was no doubt hard to make a case. Last March, Plucky pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and served a 90-day jail sentence.

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