Orange County sheriff releases video of McDonald’s shootout
Orange County deputies stationed just outside a McDonald’s drive-thru on a Saturday night pointed their rifles at a takeout window, as another deputy on a loudspeaker tried to get Shandricka Warren to come out with her hands up.
Warren, who deputies say on April 30 had scared everyone out of the restaurant after pointing a handgun at a customer from behind the counter, appeared to fire her gun twice. Deputies then fired back, shooting more than a dozen rounds into the restaurant, but Warren was uninjured.
Several hours later, she dropped her gun and stepped out the restaurant, where deputies took her into custody, according to body camera footage released by the Orange County Sheriff ’s Office on Wednesday.
“I got you, I got you, I got you,” said one deputy as he cuffed her. “Stay right there, OK? You understand me?”
Videos from two different body cameras showed deputies trying for six hours to coax Warren out of the McDonald’s on the 4600 block of Orange Blossom Trail, leading to a brief shootout that left no one injured.
According to arrest reports, Warren went into the McDonald’s “acting erratically,” hopping behind the counter with her gun and firing several shots before telling employees to leave. Her family spoke to her over the phone at the scene, while SWAT deputies held a perimeter outside the restaurant as they negotiated her surrender.
Investigators who interviewed her after her arrest described her thought pattern as “disorganized,” telling authorities she didn’t remember being at the McDonald’s that night, Cpl. Brian Meadows wrote in his report.
The body camera videos was released less than two weeks after the shooting, in keeping with the Sheriff ’s Office’s recently adopted policy that calls for releasing footage within a month after shootings by deputies. The three deputies who shot at Warren were placed on paid leave while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates the shooting.
“The Orange County Sheriff ’s Office is committed to transparency and believes it is critical to maintaining accountability and enhancing trust between this agency and the public,” Mina said in a video statement leading into the body camera video.
Warren is currently in the Orange County Jail without bond, charged with three counts of aggravated assault on law enforcement, and armed burglary.