out of all the restaurant chains within the United States and abroad it goes without saying that the Waffle House has one of the worst reputations of any of them the idea that the Waffle House tends to be the scene of many many crimes is actually a meme in itself but is there any truth to these memes well yes there is so far on this channel I've talked about crimes revolving around McDonald's miscreant and Chuck-E-Cheese drunkards but there's one popular topic that I neglected to cover Waffle House when talking about those other places people in the comment section overwhelmingly wanted a video on this topic that's pretty understandable as Waffle House has kind of gotten the reputation as being one of the scummy seediest restaurant chains throughout the United States it wasn't always this way but after many many major headlining crimes over the past few years it's gotten that reputation personally I haven't actually eaten at Waffle House before the one time that I did go in there was vomit all over the floor by the bar style seating and the only person working there told me sorry we'll get to that in a bit that kind of ruined my appetite so I just kind of walked out and I went to denny's instead and I've been a Denny's guy ever since as a result of that I can't vouge for the atmosphere to too much but luckily we have a long long list of Articles willing to help us learn about the place let's start with one of the classics this takes us back to the far off year of 2007 when none other than Kid Rock got into a Waffle House brawl in Georgia when a man named harlon Atkins approached a female member of Kid Rock's Entourage and attempted to speak with her kid lashed out and attacked him while kid still claims that he only verbally abused the man not physically he was still arrested on charges of assault only about 1 hour later Harland then took Kid Rock to court initially wanting 6,000 in medical fees and another unspecified amount for punitive damages while the punitive damages weren't awarded the judge actually ended up awarding him $40,000 and other damages Kid Rock was only held responsible for about 15% of that amount as it was found that his guitarist threw the first punch his personal assistant and executive assistant were also forced to pay a certain percentage for throwing punches themselves still Kid Rock claimed that he never hit the guy I gave it to him verbally I said shut your mouth man he claims the victim said that he was only talking to the woman in the group about some text messages she had sent him he said I still don't even know what I did say to him to start this jumping on me while admitting that both he and Kid Rock were very drunk when the in incident happened Kid Rock's lawyers insisted that this was merely a ploy to get money out of a celebrity in the end Kid Rock was sentenced to a year of probation in order to pay a $1,000 fine as well while this was the first widely publicized case involving Waffle House it wouldn't be the last and it definitely wouldn't be the worst for the next several years throughout the 2000s and 2010s a large number of brutal strange crimes would continue to happen regularly at the EST establishment for example in August of 2011 in Panama City a man named Charles Patrick O'Brien was very angry with his wife he decided to take his emotions out on her in one of the most unhinged and unpredictable ways possible as his wife Danielle Gibbons was enjoying a meal at the Waffle House he watched her through the window from his truck unable to control himself he stomped on the pedal and rammed his truck through the window of the Waffle House and accelerated straight towards his wife until the vehicle got stuck he hopped out of the truck knife in hand and went to finish his wife off this was when a customer was able to grab a big chunk of metal from the wreckage and thwack Charles over the head with it ending his Rampage his wife had suffered injuries from the crash but they weren't life-threatening she was rushed to the hospital and it seems that she made a full recovery Charles was arrested on charges of attempted murder and felony criminal mischief while this crime was a good mixture of vicious and Goofy many later crimes would lean more heavily into the vicious side of things at a Waffle House in South Carolina in January of 2012 a few teenage boys decided to hop in and Rob the place rushing into the restaurant at about 1:00 a. m. they pulled out weapons threatened cashiers and demanded cash they didn't get too far as one customer in the restaurant who had a concealed carry permit was packing he pulled out his gun and demanded that the two robbers stay put until the police arrive one of the robbers though aimed his gun at him so he fired hitting one of the boys 18-year-old Dante Lamont Williams and killing him he died there on the scene before the police arrived the other robber a 29-year-old Kenneth Joe and Craig panicked and fled the scene he was arrested later that night and charg with both armed robbery and possession of a weapon during a violent crime he was thrown in into the sparenberg county jail the guy who shot at the robbers wasn't charged with any sort of crime as there were plenty of witnesses that could clarify that he shot in self-defense during a crime in 2018 we had what is probably the most well-known and most well-documented case involving a Waffle House this is due to what a man named Travis ranking would come to commit in a waffle house located in the Antioch neighborhood of Nashville Tennessee Travis was nothing less than a strange young man he was known for being a bit of an eccentric to put it lightly suffering from paranoia getting into Petty crimes and being absolutely obsessed with Taylor Swift to the point of delusion in fact he had told his co-workers that he had plans to marry Taylor Swift saying that not only had they met but they were also engaged they didn't really believe him especially considering that he had told them he was gay during the same episode of word vomit at one point in 2016 his delusions got so bad that he felt that Taylor Swift was stalking him and hacking into his phone he fled to a drugstore in a paranoia induced Haze forcing his parents to chase him down and call the police when the police arrived they said Travis is hostile toward police and does not recognize police Authority Travis also possesses several Firearms one year later Travis was living in an apartment above his dad's business in Illinois he had been working with his father but had since quit feeling that the police were stalking him there he also felt that his faded chance to marry Taylor Swift was soon approaching and he couldn't miss it one day his father was forced to call the police once again when Travis came downstairs into his business wearing nothing but a pink dress carrying a rifle cursing all the way to his car on another occasion the police were called when he went to a swimming pool in a similar pink women's coat and Flash the lifeguards a few months later actual Secret Service agents had to arrest Travis when he made his way out to Washington DC and attempted to break into the White House he was there saying he had an important meeting with the president it appeared that he had fallen into the Sovereign citizen conspiracy theories online and felt he needed to discuss it all with the government he was charged with unlawful entry and forced to perform 32 hours of community service for this incident he was also forbidden from visiting the White House ever again it was after this incident that the Illinois police finally revoked his firearms license and seized four of his weapons a Remington rifle a 22 caliber rifle a handgun and an AR-15 Travis's father asked if he could keep the guns himself and they agreed as long as he promised he would keep them secure and away from his son however he gave them back to his son after a begging Session One Night Travis then moved out to Nashville in late 2017 working as a crane operator and construction worker however he was fired in April of 2018 for once again claiming that he was being stalked This Time by the other employees who work there he then stole a BMW from a dealership he was quickly caught by the police given that the car had GPS tracking and they found the key fob in his apartment shortly after arriving to ask him some questions Travis had hit rock bottom just a few days after being fired he hopped into his truck completely naked aside from a jacket holding his AR-15 he drove over to a Waffle House in the Antioch neighborhood and sat in his truck for about 4 minutes before coming out nearly nuded he moved toward the waffle house with his rifle he shot two people standing outside killing the both before moving into the restaurant there he continued to fire his gun killing one more person and injuring a fourth another customer 29-year-old James Shaw Jr got grazed by a bullet he hid near the restrooms before plunging out and wrestling the gun away from Travis ending the Rampage Travis defeated ran out of the restaurant completely new leaving his jacket behind the fourth victim who had been injured later passed away at the hospital from their injuries Travis had left no sort of Manifesto notes or Communications the police had very little to go on when it came to a motive they began to hunt him down warning the public that he was armed and dangerous having owned more guns than just the r he had abandoned the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation added him to their list of most wanted criminals and offered a hefty reward for his arrest Travis was tracked down and captured the next day after he was seen entering the woods near the Waffle House he was carrying a backpack with his handgun and some more ammo he was charged with four counts of criminal homicide four counts of attempted homicide and one count of having a firearm while committing a dangerous felony he was given a mental exam and found to have severe schizophrenia he was deemed incompetent to stand trial and sent to a mental hospital for treatment by October though he was deemed competent to stand trial once and for all he was facing life in prison without parole when the trial came in 2022 he pled not guilty to 16 counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon however he quickly changed his mind changing his plea from not guilty to Guilty by reason of insanity this was unsuccess uccessful and he was found guilty on all counts including four counts of premeditated murder he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole his father Jeffrey Ry King was later hit with a charge of unlawful delivery of a firearm for illegally returning the guns to his son and hit with an 18-month prison sentence himself in the same year as Travis is sentencing another shooting would happen to take place at a Waffle House in the very same state in 2022 in Clarksville a 28-year-old man named Mark Austin Ellis known on the street as Bubba richichi was out on bond after being indicted on a charge of first-degree murder he had shot a mother in her car while her two kids were in the back seat he was charged with first-degree murder attempted murder reckless endangerment and weapons charges he decided that one charge of murder simply wasn't enough after seemingly getting into an argument with a few other people outside of a Waffle House the Fort Campbell Boulevard location one Sunday morning he decided that there would be no better way to end the argument than by pulling out a gun and shooting all of them he then sprayed bullets inside the restaurant as well the police were called out to the restaurant to find broken glass and petrified customers all over the place three people outside of the restaurant had been injured from their gunshots one critically and were taken to the hospital several other people inside were hurt by the shattered glass local residents when interviewed by the media expressed that they weren't at all surprised after all crime had been escalating for years and nothing really shocked them anymore one woman said it wasn't really shocking to me just more upsetting I think it's just really scary and it makes me nervous as a parent and it seems to be that crime is getting worse in Clarksville I've lived here for 7 years and it just seems like there's escalating violence in this town others while not really shocked at the violence found the choice of location to be odd at the Whopper House you got me don't want to go eat no more it wasn't long before the police Tracked Down buichi getting an arrest warrant they took him in and found that he had a firearm on his person despite being a felon along with a felony amount of Narcotics now he's facing an additional two charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm along with possession for resale simple possession SL casual exchange and unlawful drug parapan Alia he was convicted after a two-day trial of conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute more than 400 G of fitel also being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking [Music] crime things would go quiet for a little bit until 2024 2024 would prove to be a very explosive year for Waffle House as several very high-profile very violent crimes would come to take place throughout the year early on in the year February of 2024 a woman named Crystal kinu a pub owner from Gary Indiana was visiting the town of Indianapolis for the weekend she attended the party and went to a club while the city hosted the NBA Allstar game events late one night at 12:30 a.
m. she was eating at a Waffle House when an altercation took place between her group and one other although the details are fuzzy well the opposing group decided to pull out their guns and start shooting by the time the police got to the scene there were five people lying on the ground with bullet wounds in the end Crystal was the only one to pass away the other victims three men and one woman were sent to the hospital and soon recovered while there were a lot of people in the restaurant when the shooting had occurred the majority of them had run out of the restaurant and fled the police were left with very little witnesses to work with in this case it seems that the police are still investigating and as of the making of this video they haven't made any arrests it isn't clear if they even have any suspects as they are still asking for people with any information to come forward we'll just have to see where this one goes then April 2024 was a particularly bad time for The Waffle House with two high-profile shootings occurring within a very close time frame one of these incidents took place at a Waffle House near Ohio State University early one morning at about 2:30 a. m.
a huge fight broke out at the restaurant resulting in a huge brawl between 15 to 20 people the fight spilled outside the restaurant and into the street ultimately concluding when shots were fired 38-year-old Ronald Diggs was shot once the authorities arrived he was taken out to the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center but it was already too late he was pronounced dead not even an hour after the fight began two people had been injured in the fight that were taken to the hospital the Columbus Division of police went on to release the photos of three people they suspected to be involved in the shooting so far 19-year-old jaquin Curry has been taken in and arrested this is still an ongoing investigation and the remaining suspects haven't been found on April 21st another shooting occurred at the Waffle House on Wards Road in Lynchburg early Sunday morning at around around 3:00 a. m. like the previous case the police were called out to deal with a large scale fight that broke out between multiple parties that ended up resulting in a shooting when the fight ended someone stood outside the restaurant and fired multiple bullets into the building Through the Windows hitting both a 74-year-old security guard and a 30-year-old man when the police arrived on the scene they applied all the aid that they could to the two victims medic soon arrived and took them to the Lynchberg General Hospital not too long after video footage of the fight was uploaded to social media and passed around being shared a large number of times the 30-year-old male victim was soon deemed to be in stable condition the 74-year-old security guard Rosal Lind de belt also survived although she was shot multiple times and required surgery some of this surgery was to her neck and face area the suspects were known to have fled the scene in a black Nissan sedan knowing the car it wasn't too long before the police were able to track down at least one of them at 5:00 p.
m.
