https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfnxOlZxQfc

Warning: Video contains racial slurs

A McDonald’s staff member has been fired by his employers after a video that captures the moment he tricked a homeless man into believing that he would offer him food – but then threw water at him – went viral on the internet.

This piece of news comes days after Inquisitr reported about the fast-food chain firing eight staff members for allegedly selling marijuana at a McDonald’s drive-thru window in France.

The incident took place at a McDonald’s drive-thru last week on the west side of Detroit’s Grand River. The McDonald’s staff member can be seen serving customers at the drive-thru window when he notices a homeless man, who was later identified as Willie Payne Jr., and offers him a sandwich.

“Hey Willie, come here! You want a sandwich?” he says in the video.

The homeless man, hopeful and visibly cold, does not approach him immediately, so the worker tempts him again: “Come on, let me give you a sandwich, man.”

The video was apparently shot by a customer waiting for his food in his vehicle — which was stopped at the window. He can be heard laughing in the video, saying: “Alright, help this n**** out. Bless his a**.”

But when Willie does come for his sandwich eventually, the McDonald’s staff member throws a cup of water at his face.

“Oh, why you do that?” the homeless man responds.

A Facebook user named Ebhate Skeez first uploaded the video Nov. 6, with the caption: “Worrrlllldddstar this what happens to panhandlers at McDonald’s. I feel bad for laughing but that s— was funny.”

The video was then uploaded on YouTube on the same day, and has since gone on to be viewed more than four million times. In the light of the incident, people took to social media to deride the young man’s actions, saying he should be fired.

And now the owner of the McDonald’s franchise, Wise Finley, has confirmed that the staff member has indeed been fired.

“I am very disturbed by the inappropriate behavior of this employee. This type of behavior is not tolerated in my organization. I expect my employees to treat everyone with dignity and respect, and this was unacceptable. This individual no longer works for my organization.”

After the video went viral, Bishop Daryl Harris, a member of Detroit’s Human Rights Commission, went looking for the McDonald’s staff member who threw water at the homeless man.

“I was outraged — I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “To use the food that he was asking for to lure him over and assault him in that manner, it was just cruel.”

He also sought the help of his friends to locate Willie, to see whether there was any way they could help him — even with something as little as a meal off the McDonald’s dollar menu.

Though Willie remained unavailable for comment till last week, he was finally located by 7 Action News Tuesday (via WXYZ) Tuesday, which interviewed him about the night of the incident.

“I just walked away. Just made me a little upset and everything. You know, I barely have a little change to buy the things that I need. And (I was) thinking he was going to give me something, but he didn’t,” said Payne.

Ebhate Skeez, the man who uploaded the video first on Facebook and who can be heard laughing in the video, later retracted his comments in an interview with Detroit’s CBS affiliate.

“They were actually arguing with each other and that’s what was funny to me,” he said.

But anybody who has seen the video will probably not agree with him. Not only was the McDonald’s staff member’s behavior not funny and totally unwarranted, most people believe people he deserved to be fired for his actions. Hopefully, that will be enough to discourage other youngsters from doing the same.

[Photo via Leave YouTube / YouTube]