TEMPLE, TEXAS (KWKT) – A woman accused of throwing soup in the face of a Texas restaurant manager was arrested, according to police.
On Wednesday, police in Temple arrested 31-year-old Amanda Martinez after video of the incident started going viral the previous week. Martinez was charged with assault causing bodily harm.
She has since bonded out of jail, the Bell County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to KWKT.
The incident, which was caught on camera, occurred at the Sol de Jalisco restaurant in Temple, Texas.
Victim Janelle Browland Browland said the customer had purchased a to-go order for a menudo soup, but called to complain upon arriving home.
“She had called back, and … started complaining about how the plastic lid from the to-go container had melted into her soup, and kept putting me off and saying, ‘Well, this is effing ridiculous,’” says Browland. “I said, ‘Yes, ma’am, I know.’ And she said, ‘Can I, can I talk to a manager? I want to talk to a manager right now.’”
That’s when Browland told the woman that she was the restaurant’s manager. Browland said the woman then used several choice words — so Browland hung up the phone.
A few minutes passed, and the phone rang a second time. Browland asked the woman to hold, in order to help other customers at the counter. But when she returned to the phone, the call had been disconnected.
“A few minutes later, that’s when my host came and got me and said, ‘There’s this lady here talking about her to-go order,’” Browland remembered. “And I just thought to myself, ‘OK, here we go.’
“I took a took a deep breath and, you know, it’s not something I haven’t dealt with before. I deal with customers all the time. Definitely not to this magnitude. But just nothing I knew I couldn’t, you know, I couldn’t handle,” Browland added.
The customer made her way to the counter to speak with Browland, who said the woman continued using harsh language.
“I said, ‘Ma’am, I can still help you,'” Browland said. “Those were my exact words. I said, ‘Ma’am, I can still help you. I just ask you, you do not talk to me that way.’ And that’s [when] she literally just grabbed the cup and just threw it right at me in that moment. “
Browland told KWKT that the soup had cooled since it was served, but said it was still warm. The spices, however, burned Browland’s eyes and gave her two separate nose bleeds, she said.