A Tennessee man who threatened a Little Caesars in Knoxville with an AK-47 in November 2021 has pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated assault.
Charles Doty Jr., 64, will be sentenced on September 29 for the 2021 incident.
It involved him becoming impatient while waiting for his $6 pepperoni pizza.
It had only taken ten minutes, but those were ten minutes too many for Doty Jr who whipped out his weapon and threatened staff.
Police were called and he was charged.
The havoc
He wouldn’t allow an employee to leave the store.
Kimberleigh Murrell and Noah Beeler were on their first day at the job when Doty came in ready to wreak havoc.
‘He comes in, the gun is pointed… down a little bit,’ Murrell told Wate 6.
After Murrell looked at the assault rifle, Doty pointed right at her and said: ‘Where is my pizza? I want my pizza now.’
Murrell was the one who originally told the man that his order was going to take around ten minutes to be ready.
The employee rushed frantically to the back of the store where she saw Beeler, her co-worker and boyfriend, according to Wate 6.
Feeling courageous, Beeler went up to the front to try to defuse the situation.
‘I go up front to deal with the customer and the gun. I am like, ‘man what is going through your head right now,’ Beeler said.
At this point another customer who was caught in the store when the incident happened offered her pepperoni pizza to Doty. He took it and left.
Doty entered a blind plea
Cops arrived after an employee called 911, just after he fled the store. He was soon arrested for the altercation.
Beeler said, ‘It wasn’t even a ten-minute wait when he came in with the gun.
‘If he would have not come in with the gun and waited another two maybe three minutes, it would have already been boxed and in his hands.’
By entering a blind plea, Doty has essentially entered a plea deal without accepting the recommended sentencing.
