A trip to KFC turned into a nightmare when a seven-year-old girl was nearly kidnapped by a homeless man while having lunch with her family, police revealed.
Lorenzo Ray Taylor, 35, has been arrested after he allegedly tried to take Giselle Hamilton away from her mother and grandmother at a Paramount, California KFC restaurant.
Heather Graesch, Giselle's mother, said they were eating at the fast food chain on Tuesday when Taylor came inside and began to yell at them.
'We started to eat and all of a sudden a man just walked up to us very strange and I wasn't sure what he was going to do,' Graesch told KTLA.
'I wasn't sure if he was going to ask for money or what was going to happen, and then he grabbed our food.'
The women got scared and Giselle's grandmother, Deborah Marlow, took her to the business counter while Graesch carried her three-year-old daughter.
But Taylor allegedly followed the family to the counter and then grabbed Giselle by the arm, trying to pull her away.
Marlow said he was staring at the child and was saying 'the girl, the girl, I'm not your enemy'.
The quick-thinking grandmother immediately grabbed Giselle's other arm.
'Then Heather, with the baby in her arm, grabbed Gee Gee as well by the shoulder or arm and pulled her, and we're tugging of war,' Marlow said.
'And he's fighting with this superpower trying to pull her away from us.'
A male customer then grabbed Taylor from behind to try and pull him off while a KFC employee got between the family and Taylor.
They were able to help free Giselle, and an employee helped the family escape into the back of the restaurant.
It was there that they saw a woman in scrubs pulling up to the drive-through and decided their girls would be safer outside the restaurant.
The women pushed Giselle and her younger sister out of the window and into the customer's arms.
But the struggle with Taylor was hardly over, according to police.
Two civilians were able to detain him after he continued to fight another man. But then Taylor managed to escape and attempted to flee the restaurant.
The two Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies that were on the scene then caught up to him, but struggled to restrain Taylor.
The bystanders then jumped back in to help before the officers used a Taser on Taylor and took him into custody.
Taylor is currently at a nearby hospital and will be booked after he is cleared.
Now the family is seeking potential legal action against KFC, claiming that the chain's employees didn't help them fast enough.
They are also claiming that the first deputy who arrived on the scene didn't come inside right away, despite being able to see the struggle happening in the restaurant.
The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department claims it took less than a minute for the deputy to come inside, saying she called for backup first when it appeared that two men were fighting.
They said the backup arrived less than a minute later.
KFC likewise issued a statement in support of its employees, saying they 'immediately called law enforcement'.
'The alleged perpetrator was restrained until he was arrested,' the statement adds.
'We are cooperating fully with local law enforcement on this investigation.'
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