A woman is facing assault charges after she allegedly climbed through the drive-thru window at the Wendy’s restaurant in North East and threatened employees while brandishing scissors — because she had applied for a job and hadn’t heard back from management, according to Cecil County District Court records.
No one was injured during the incident, which occurred at approximately 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday at Wendy’s near the North East Station shopping center in the 2000 block of West Pulaski Highway (Route 40), police reported.
Investigators identified the suspect as Zaria M. Johnson-Love, 21, of Edgewood.
North East Police Department officers responded to the fast-food restaurant after receiving a dispatch regarding a customer causing a disturbance, court records show.
Maryland State Police troopers were at the scene, talking to Johnson-Love and a 44-year-old woman who was with her, when NEPD officers arrived, police reported.
The restaurant manager told investigators that Johnson-Love and her companion were ordering food inside the Wendy’s when the suspect got into an argument over her “applying for job and not hearing back,” according to the charging document.
The women were asked to leave the restaurant after they allegedly threatened the staff, police said. At that point, police added, the women left the building and walked to the drive-thru window.
The manager told investigators that Johnson-Love then “climbed through the drive through window, back inside of the store . . . grabbed a pair of orange-handled scissors and began threatening staff with the scissors, lunging at them,” court records allege.
In addition, the manager told investigators that “there is video footage” of the incident and that management would provide police with it, court records show.
Investigators also interviewed two Wendy’s employees, who were there when the incident occurred, and they corroborated the manager’s account, police reported.
“They advised that they were in fear for their lives and that they believed that (Johnson-Love) was going to stab them with the scissors,” according to the charging document.
Police arrested Johnson-Love at the scene and they ordered her companion to leave the Wendy’s property and not to return, court records show.
After she had been taken into custody, Johnson-Love told investigators that she noticed the scissors lying on a Wendy’s counter and grabbed them “because she thought she was going to die,” according to the charging document.
Johnson-Love is facing three counts each of first-degree assault and second-degree assault, in addition to a single charge of reckless endangerment, court records show.
She remained in the Cecil County Detention Center on no bond Wednesday night, after her bail review hearing earlier that day, according to court records, which indicate that Cecil County District Court Judge Clara E. Campbell presided over that proceeding.
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