Case Closed: A Taco Bell assistant manager...

Case Closed: A Taco Bell assistant manager was fired for closing her restaurant after a gang of youths beat a customer and threatened to shoot him. The fast-food chain said Lee Sexton, 31, did not have authority to close the Kent, Wash., restaurant under those conditions. “We have a responsibility to our customers,” Taco Bell Vice President Jack Daly said Thursday from corporate headquarters in Irvine. Sexton said four or five teens entered the restaurant the night of Sept. 5 and beat a boy. Sexton said she ordered the teens out, and while they were leaving, one of them turned and threatened to shoot the victim if he tried to leave. Sexton said she could not reach two supervisors by phone, and decided on her own to close the restaurant and its drive-up window. She reopened the window after talking to a supervisor about 10 p.m., an hour before normal closing time. Daly said Sexton was told not to close the restaurant but did so anyway. “When a situation warrants it you may elect (to close). But this was not one of those isolated situations,” he said. Sexton said she will file a complaint with the state Department of Labor and Industries.