Farmington, N.Y. - It was no mere bean bag toss. Police say a Dunkin Donuts customer apparently needed a cup of coffee so badly he hurled a bag of beans at a worker, hitting her squarely in the back."It hurt- it was like stunning," says the employee Susan Sciarabba. "I turned around and there's a pound of dark roast coffee flying across the room."
Sciarabba is used to dealing with people who are less than cordial before they get their morning coffee. After all she says "every now and then people have a bad day."
On Friday afternoon she was working at the Farmington store on Route 332 at about 1:30 p.m. making sandwiches for a large order. A fellow employee-in-training was waiting on another customer. Witnesses say Gabriel Le Tennier was next in line but didn't want to wait.
As he became more agitated Sciarabba offered to help him next, then to give him the coffee for free.
"I was not expecting anyone to throw anything at me," she says as she demonstrated how she turned her back to finish assembling the sandwiches. "I wasn't expecting him to be so mean after I had given him the free coffee."
With her back turned the victim did not see the coffee bag coming, but security cameras caught the whole thing. Police would not release the images, but those who have seen them say you can see Le Tennier become more and more agitated.
"It shows (the coffee) clearly hitting me in the back of the neck, right here," Sciarabba says pointing to her left shoulder and neck. "He took his whole 350 pounds behind it- he threw it at me like he was throwing a baseball and he had good aim because he hit me."
A witness copied down the customer's license plate number. When sheriff's deputies tracked Le Tennier down they identified him as a man wanting for questioning in other incidents. Police would not be specific but so far he has not been charged with crimes beyond harassment and disorderly conduct in the coffee incident.
Susan Sciarabba immediately went back to work. "I'm not going to complain it’s just a pound of coffee but it kind of hurts when it hits you square in the back," she says.
