A 24-year-old Bloomington man was arrested after he chased the driver of a car in the parking lot of Hardee’s while illegally carrying a handgun, according to the Bloomington Police and a probable cause affidavit obtained by the Bloomingtonian.
Police told the Bloomingtonian the man, a recent employee at the fast-food eatery, claimed a customer didn’t pay for food before driving away on December 28, 2022.
Police were called to a weapons-in-progress complaint when someone saw what appeared to be, “someone walking in and out of Hardee’s with an assault rifle [sic] or machine gun,” according to court documents. Then it was reported a female exited the store with a rifle and entered a white vehicle.
Police reviewing the video wrote, “Jesse runs out of the Hardee’s drive-thru employee entrance and over to a white sedan that Keyra occupied. Jesse opens the back driver’s side door and removes an AR pistol. Once Jesse removes the AR pistol from the white sedan, he runs east through the Hardee’s parking lot after a car that had just left, holding the AR pistol in his right
hand. Jesse then returns to the car and talks with Keyra, still holding the AR pistol in his right hand and waving it around. Jesse then leaves the vehicle and enters Hardee’s through the same employee entrance, still possessing the AR pistol.”
Keyra is a woman who told police she owned the weapon and had retrieved it from the restaurant.
However, police arrested the 24-year-old Hardee’s employee because he was previously convicted of a felony within the past 15 years, and by law, isn’t allowed to be in possession of a handgun. He is being charged with a level 5 felony for unlawful carrying of a handgun.
