Florida Man William Branch, 43, attempted to carjack a woman with her baby at a Fort Walton Chick-fil-A. The Victim was taking her infant out of her car when Branch approached wielding a sharpened stick and demanded the keys.
Branch then snatched the keys hanging from the victims waist and started to get in the car. The victim started screaming for help and Chick-fil-A employee Mykel Gordon went into action. Mykel confronted Branch and was promptly punched in the face. Mykel wasn’t deterred by the blow and put Branch into a headlock and wrestled him to the ground, holding him down until deputies arrived.
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A brave Chick-Fil-A employee ran to the aid of a woman carrying her baby during an attempted carjacking. https://t.co/lq6ubJMt4G pic.twitter.com/wMKaA1Uf3W
— ABC News (@ABC) September 17, 2022
William Branch of DeFuniak Springs is charged with #carjacking with a weapon & battery after he grabbed car keys from a woman with a baby outside Chick-fil-A on Beal Pkway and got into her car. An employee intervened after hearing the woman screaming. Branch was wielding a stick. pic.twitter.com/J9sGh58Z2p
— OkaloosaSheriff (@OCSOALERTS) September 14, 2022
Chick-fil-A worker caught on video saving woman and baby during carjacking
Police said the Mykel Gordon, rushed outside the Fort Walton Beach area restaurant to help a screaming woman holding a baby after a man grabbed her keys & tried to take her car. https://t.co/N9Z3l8KfVw
— National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (@MissingKids) September 16, 2022
The incident was the second time that day that Gordon had to deal with Branch. Earlier branch attempted to rob someone on the opposite side of the restaurant, and he was chased away by Gordon and an unidentified customer.
Gordon has a habit of doing the right thing. In September 2018, while taking orders outside the Fort Walton Beach Chick-fil-A, Gordon was among the first to respond when a crane fell onto a car, the Northwest Florida Daily News reported. A teenage driver and her friend were inside.
Gordon told the paper that he dropped what he was doing and rushed to the girls’ vehicle, carrying one of them to safety. Other bystanders eventually assisted, and the group helped the other girl safely escape, the Daily News reported.
“I didn’t have any time to react,” Gordon told the paper. “It was nothing but instinct and I ran to the car.”
Originally from Alaska, Gordon told the paper that his stepfather was in the military, “and I grew up doing what he was doing.”
“I think the Lord put me outside,” Gordon added in 2018. “As soon as this happened, I had prayers in my head. I was helping her. I was on autopilot.”
The day after the Carjacking attempt, Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden arrived at the Chick-fil-A and presented Mykel Gordon with a Community Service Award and Sheriff’s Office challenge coin for his actions.
Branch was transported to the Okaloosa County Jail and Charged with Battery and Armed Carjacking.
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