Deaf McDonald’s customers call police after being denied service at drive-thru

Last night a group of young Deaf people in Delaware called the police after they were denied service at a McDonald’s drive-thru.

The Daily Moth was in touch with Harsh Shah, who showed me video clips that showed what happened. Shah can use his voice to speak and there is one clip where it shows a spoken confrontation with a McDonald’s employee. Convo provided interpretation for it.

TYLEE THOMAS:

What happened was, since it was nighttime, McDonald’s was closed from the inside, so we had to order using a drive-thru.

Since we’re deaf and… I can hear a bit, but I couldn’t 100% hear them. So we didn’t want to be patient so we decided to go up to the window so we could place an order.

I asked nicely if I could order there. The woman there was really rude and insisted that we couldn’t order at that point. She was really rude to us.

DOM HECKER: The woman told us the reason why she couldn’t let us do that was because this wasn’t fair for hearing people.

Even then, deaf people have a reason for doing this. We can’t speak. How could we place an order that way? We simply wanted to drive up to the window so we could talk face to face when we want to order some food. But she would not let us.

HARSH SHAH: And the manager just stood there and didn’t intervene.

DOM: That manager just walked away and didn’t say anything.

I was like, “WTF?”

SHAH: I got out of the car, I was mad, and I wanted to speak to her directly. We argued that we were deaf and what they were doing wasn’t fair to us. I was really mad.

INTERPRETER: *Music in background*

*Sound of a door opening*

Are you having a hard time hearing?

Yes, that’s what I’m saying. You need to talk, right?

Yes.

Can you hear too? Okay.

You know, we have a policy where everyone has to order through the box.

Right.

Even if it takes you an hour and a half to say your order, that’s fine. It’s not fair to everyone who’s ordered. We can’t accept anyone’s order when they’ve skipped the box.

But it’s because I can’t hear. You need to understand.

*Beeping sounds

*Beeping sounds*

*Sighing in background*

*Beeping sounds*

Okay…

SHAH: We called the police.

(video clip of police car at McDonald’s parking lot)

SHAH: They came here. We are grateful to the officers and appreciate it.

TYLEE: The cops understood how we felt so they were nice enough to place an order for us. We thanked them for understanding that this is what deaf people often feel.

(Image of deaf customers standing with police officers, holding ice cream)

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Alex: Wow, it’s a happy ending for the Deaf customers — having ice cream with police officers.

I’ve reported about Deaf customers having police called on them by the store, but the tables are turned with the customers calling police.

I’ve reached out to McDonald’s press office, but did not get an immediate response. When I do, I will add it in the comments section.

Shah said McDonald’s has not yet reached out to them to apologize.

https://www.facebook.com/dom.hecker.1/posts/687699475007004