Jack in the Box worker defends herself after being sued, accused of shooting at customers

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The Jack in the Box employee, who was captured on video allegedly shooting at a customer in the drive-thru over a dispute about a meal, is telling her side of the story.

"I'm not an angry person. (I'm) not a mad monster out here. I'm just a woman trying to work for my family," Alonniea Ford-Theriot told ABC13.

On Monday, attorney Randall Kallinen released a video he recently obtained through discovery in a civil case. The video is from March 2021 and shows Ford-Theriot firing a gun at a customer in the drive-thru of the Jack in the Box on JFK Boulevard near Bush Intercontinental Airport.

SEE MORE: Houston Jack in the Box employee shoots at customers from Florida over missing curly fries: Lawsuit

Kallinen's client is the customer, Anthony Ramos. He was in the driver's seat, with his wife and child also in the vehicle, according to the lawsuit.

"She's aiming. She's leaning. She's not just going up in the air. She's trying to kill them," Kallinen said in a news conference Tuesday morning.

"It was pointed right at me. I'm surprised she didn't get me," Ramos added after saying the dispute was over curly fries that were missing from his order. "She said we weren't going to get them."

"I'm not going to pull out no gun and shoot at somebody over no curly fries. Come on," Ford-Theriot said in response to the allegations.

The 30-year-old met with ABC13 Tuesday afternoon to defend herself. She said Ramos was threatening her and calling her racial slurs, which he denies. The video shows her checking her gun. She said she asked him to drive away several times. He refused. The video captures the gunfire.

"The video does show you shoot at them. What if you had hit them?" ABC13 Reporter Jessica Willey asked.

"If you hear the audio, you didn't hear the gun go off at all," she replied.

There is no audio on the video that Kallinen released, but it does show a muzzle flash, and according to court records, Houston police found a spent shell casing.

Ford-Theriot was initially charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a felony, but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of deadly conduct, a misdemeanor.

"A full investigation of the facts by us led the District Attorney's Office to realize the shortcomings in their case based on facts that have not been reported thus far," her criminal defense attorney, Daniel Werlinger, told ABC13.

Ford-Theriot got one year of deferred adjudication community supervision, which she completed in June 2023.

She and the restaurant still face the civil lawsuit, in which Ramos and his family claim they were exposed to a dangerous employee and were traumatized.

In court filings, the fast food restaurant denied the allegations and said it had "no control" over and is not "legally responsible" for third parties.

A company spokesman sent the following statement to Eyewitness News:

"While we cannot comment on ongoing litigation, we are aware of the situation involving an employee of one of our independent franchisees and remain focused on providing a safe environment for customers and restaurant workers."

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