McDonald’s ‘devastated’ after 6-year-old shot dead at Meadowdale drive-thru

McDonald’s South Africa management said they are “devastated” by a robbery incident that claimed the life of a six-year-old boy on the East Rand, in Gauteng.

The new year got off to a tragic start for the parents of the little child after he was shot and killed while seated in a car with his parents at a McDonald’s drive-thru in Brickfield, Meadowdale on Friday night.

The incident has left the country shocked after a child’s life was cut short by another senseless crime in what was believed to be a robbery gone wrong.

Murder and robbery case

It is understood a suspect robbed the family while in the drive-through and then fired a shot at their car after initially telling them to go.

The child died after being rushed to hospital.

Gauteng police have launched a manhunt for the three people involved in the shooting of the six-year-old boy.

Police spokesperson Colonel Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi said while two of the robbers entered a McDonald’s restaurant and stole an undisclosed amount of money before fleeing the scene, a third suspect, who was driving a getaway car, approached a vehicle in the drive-through lane where a father, mother, and their six-year-old son were sitting and proceeded to rob them as well.

“He robbed them of their belongings and fired a shot at their car before instructing them to drive off.

“A case of murder and business robbery has been opened for further investigation, and no one has been arrested as yet,” Nevhuhulwi said.

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Child killed

McDonald’s chief marketing officer, Daniel Padayachee confirmed to The Citizen that the criminals also robbed the staff in the store.

“These guys came in and jumped through the drive-through window, tried to rob them, assaulted some of our crew and our staff. So I think it was an opportunistic crime and unfortunately, it led to the fatal killing of the six-year-old boy.

“We do have some camera footage that’s going to assist the police in this matter, which we’ve surrendered back to the South African Police in their investigation into the incident,” Padayachee said.

Support

Padayachee said the family members were regular patrons of McDonald’s Brickfield store in Meadowdale.

“So, they know our staff and crew really well and yesterday our operations staff on the ground paid the family a visit to their homes to pass our sympathies and condolences to the family obviously, it’s a major tragedy and we want to give the family the space and the time to deal with this.

“We are complying with all the laws and authorities to make sure that we can assist in bringing justice to the family,” Padayachee said.

Safety and security measures

Padayachee said they have security measures in place, including an unarmed guard at their outlets.

“As far as any safety and security measures a concerned, I think we’re doing what we should be doing from an establishment perspective so we do have a man guard on site unarmed and for obvious reasons, and we have security cameras on our premises and our parking lots are well lit up at night.

“So, we do this kind of precautionary measures to ensure that we can provide a safe environment,” Padayachee said

Padayachee stated that McDonald’s trains its crew and staff on how to respond to similar incidents.

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