There are a handful of possible explanations for what went down on Tuesday night at the McDonald's at 4800 South Freeway in Fort Worth. It may have been, as Sergeant Joe Loughman suggested to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, an act of divine intervention. Perhaps gun manufacturers developed a mind-reading anti-murder trigger lock and forgot to mention it. Most likely, it was pure, dumb luck.
Because police say that Jestin Anthony Joseph wanted to kill patrons and employees at the restaurant. It's just that his gun wouldn't let him.
Surveillance video reviewed by officers shows Joseph entering the restaurant at 9 p.m. and, after asking for a cup of water, circulating through the restaurant and demanding property from employees and patrons at gunpoint. Five times he aimed at his would-be victims point-blank and pulled the trigger, according to the Star-Telegram. Five times, nothing happened.
It's not as if his gun didn't work. In the midst of the robbery attempt, police say Joseph stepped outside and successfully fired into the air. Later, he squeezed off two shots at a passing car. Yet whenever he stepped back inside the restaurant, the gun refused to fire.
"I've never seen anything like that before," Sergeant Joe Loughman. "It must not have been their time to go."
Police arrested Joseph shortly after he left the restaurant, empty-handed. In his hometown of Allen, police told the Star-Telegram that Jones "seems to suffer from extreme paranoia." Joseph's mother offered a similar diagnosis.
"I know that same spirit that grabbed ahold of his dad and took his dad mentally, grabbed Jestin," she told the paper. "I could hear that with Jestin, in the things he was saying."
