A Union City Kroger manager has been arrested and charged with attacking a senior citizen in the store parking lot, and the grocery chain announced Friday night that the manager has been fired.
The alleged victim, John Young, re-aggravated a shoulder injury in the attack and says he wants an apology from Kroger. He also has hired a lawyer.
"I don't understand why this happened," the 73-year-old Young said Friday evening. "I was trying to help someone."
Witnesses were outraged at the Wednesday attack. "He was being hassled over giving away food," Wali Muhammad told Channel 2 Action News.
The store manager, Jack Hinesley, was charged with simple battery and released Thursday evening on $1,000 bond, South Fulton Municipal Regional Jail officials told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Reached by phone Friday evening, Hinesley declined to comment.
In a statement released Friday night, Kroger Atlanta Division spokesman Glynn Jenkins said, "What happened to Mr. Young was a terrible thing. This never should have happened and we deeply regret that it did.
"After an internal investigation, we have decided to terminate Mr. Hinesley's employment with Kroger. We hope Mr. Young recovers quickly from the injuries he suffered," Jenkins said.
Young is a retired truck driver who has, for the past dozen years or more, operated a non-profit called God's Goodness that cooperates with grocery stores to donate perishable foods to needy families.
The attack happened, ironically, at the store where the Fairburn man said he started his charitable mission, and where he's shopped since it opened in the 1990s.
"My daughter worked at this store," Young said. "My wife and I have gone to that store for a long time. We go there to get our prescriptions filled."
Young was shopping at the store at 4550 Jonesboro Road on Wednesday when he said he overheard a woman on the phone saying she couldn't afford to buy some items. As he checked out, the woman was behind him, and Young said he invited her to follow him.
"Something said to me, 'Help her,'" Young said.
The woman went with him to his truck, where he began to look for food to give her.
"The manager came outside with a security guard and told me to leave the property and I wasn't allowed to sell food there," Young said. "I told him that I wasn't selling food."
Other witnesses echoed Young's sentiment, but Hinesley persisted, Young said.
"He asked me to show him proof of my business," Young said, indicating that he retrieved a card from his truck. "Then he snatched the [card] from me and turned to walk away."
Young said he reached out to Hinesley to get the card back.
"He turned around, and to the ground I went," Young said.
Hinesley "knocked [Young] down in the parking lot and just busted his head open," Muhammad said.
Young reinjured a rotator cuff tear that he'd recently had repaired in surgery, and he suffered a gash over his eye that required stitches. Currently, his right arm is in a sling and is immobile, he said.
Young's attorney, Mawuli Mel Davis, said Kroger has reached out to his client, but they will likely meet with Kroger officials sometime next week.
"We're open for dialogue," Davis said. "We want to know why this manager thought it was OK to take a customer ... an old man, and slam him to the ground. Is that what shoppers can look forward to?"
Young said he'd communicated with the previous manager about his charitable work, but had never spoken with Hinesley before Wednesday.
"The employees there know me," he said.
While Davis continues to investigate the accident, he said Young hasn't been able to help the people who depend on him since the attack.
Young agreed, saying, "I don't think I could stop . ... but there are places that I go everyday that I haven't been able to go to."
Davis asked for the public's help to keep God's Goodness going while Young recovers. "We would love for anybody to come forward," Davis said.
People can contact Davis at 404-244-2004.
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