A fight over cold french fries led to the shooting of a Brooklyn McDonald’s worker, who is now fighting for his life, a high-ranking police source said Tuesday.
The 23-year-old victim was working at the fast-food joint at 1531 Fulton St. in Bedford-Stuyvesant around 7 p.m. Monday when he started getting hassled by a female customer over her fries, the source said.
The woman was FaceTiming her 20-year-old son during the argument, and the son soon stormed into the restaurant and began fighting with the employee, the source alleged.
“The mom complained that her fries were cold,’’ the police source said. “The mom was on FaceTime with her son, and he heard the dispute between her and the clerk. The son and the clerk got into a dispute inside, and it went outside.”
That’s when the woman’s son allegedly whipped out a gun and blasted the worker in the neck, cops said.
“I feel like crying. You shot someone over french fries?” said a witness, who owns a local business, to The Post on Tuesday.
Another witness said, “The co-workers, they were around [the victim].
“They were on their phones, and they were crying.
“A man took off his shirt and put it on the neck to try to stop the bleeding. [The victim’s] right eye was swollen shut.
“He couldn’t talk,’’ the witness said of the tragic employee. “He was just shaking. His chest was heaving. He was still breathing when they put him on the stretcher.”
The victim remained in extremely critical condition at Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn on Tuesday, sources said.
His distraught family and friends wept and consoled each other on the steps of the hospital’s emergency-room entrance Tuesday afternoon.
“He is a good guy,’’ a coworker told The Post.
The employee added that the store “cut security in June.
“We don’t know why. They don’t tell us anything.’’
A single spent 9mm casing was recovered at the scene and the suspected shooter was taken into custody, police sources said. Charges have yet to be filed.
The suspected shooter has been previously arrested several times, including for grand larceny in 2019 and assault and theft of service in 2018, sources said. He also has numerous sealed arrest cases against him, they said.
In addition, sources described the man as a witness to a shooting in Brooklyn’s 81st Precinct in May.
Tuesday’s shooting was caught on surveillance video, sources said.
Photos and footage of the aftermath showed a man cradling the badly injured worker’s head as blood spilled on the sidewalk.
“I saw the guy lying on the sidewalk. He was on his back,’’ another witness said. “Blood was running from his neck area onto the sidewalk.
“[EMTs] stopped, they picked him up [on a stretcher], they went right away with him.”
The witness said his own son was fatally shot six years ago, “so it wasn’t a good scene for me.
“I took it personally because I have experience of the trauma of what it did to my family – no grandchildren.”
The local business owner said she was at her shop with employees when “we heard the pop.
“At first, we thought it was a firecracker. I was scared. That’s why I didn’t run to the scene. You don’t know who is around.”
Later, “we all came outside. The boy was on the ground.’’
A local store worker added that he heard “one shot.”
“I saw people running. I got scared, and I closed my doors.
“Where does a 20 year-old get a gun from?” the man said, shaking his head. “Fulton Street is the craziest street. It’s getting worse, and the shooters are getting younger. They have lost their sense of direction.
“It says something when a mother is with her son who is carrying a gun.
“I saw two police at the corner all week, but yesterday I didn’t see one. They should be at every single corner every day.”
The business owner said the shooter’s mom “was in shock” afterward.
“She was giving [cops] all the information,’’ the woman said. “She admitted to police, ‘I called my son.’ ”
A witness who said she has lived in the neighborhood for 30 years said of the area, “It’s OK, but there are a few people that give problems, just a nuisance.
“I see a couple of them get arrested, but I see them out back on the streets,’’ she said.
“I don’t know what police are going to do. [The troublemakers] are hostile against police. I feel for the police, especially when they are walking by and [they] say things to them.”
McDonald’s did not immediately return a request for comment from The Post.
Additional reporting by Haley Brown
