Panera Manager Hits Employee: Man Not Charged For Hitting Female Employee, Cops Say It Was ‘Self-Defense’

A Panera manager hit an employee, but doesn’t get charged for his actions because he was defending himself. According to the New York Daily News, the male manager was seen throwing a couple of good blows at a female employee who threw a bag of chips on the floor, and was yelling inside the eatery.

A man named Joe Schumacher, 28, was at the Panera in Manhattan for lunch when he saw things play out. He decided to take a video of the incident with his cell phone. Before he did so, however, he says things were already pretty ugly. Evidently, the man threw the woman down the stairs before the cell phone video started recording.

The Panera manager hits the employee a couple of times in the video (seen above). Onlookers can be heard screaming things like, “don’t hit her!” Just as things really start to escalate, a group of people rushed over, trying to keep these two from getting into it again.

According to Gawker, Panera Bread has released a statement following the incident. While the manager didn’t face criminal charges, he and the female employee both lost their jobs. The company highlighted a “zero tolerance” for violence policy, and assured the public that they handled this incident on their end.

“Today there were reports of a physical altercation between two associates at our Park Avenue South bakery-cafe. We have a zero tolerance policy for violence and worked swiftly with authorities to investigate. The associates who were determined to be involved no longer work for Panera.”

What caused the Panera manager to hit the employee is not completely clear. Witnesses say that the employee started getting irate, and that she threatened to “turn up.” It is unknown if there is more to what actually happened, but evidently, this was enough for the manager to take get violent.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, a tipster recalled these moments, saying that the manager didn’t really have a reason to get so violent.

“… Then out of nowhere white shirt manager approaches her and immediately gets physical with her, keep in mind she’s about 5’2 at most and he was bigger than me … He legit threw her down a flight of stairs and out the front door for really no reason, she runs around to the other entrance to retaliate and that’s where the video starts. You might wanna say she hit him first, but really he had FULL CONTROL over her the entire time, was throwing her around, I think she gets one slap in that was louder than it was painful, then he half punches her once, she spins, and then he REALLY F*****G PUNCHES her.”

Do you think the Panera manager should have been charged for hitting the employee?

[Photo by Scott Olson / Getty Images]