Sustaining skull-crushing, bone-breaking, contusion-causing beat-downs at the end of a metal hamburger grill scraper did not stop two irate McDonalds customers from giving cops a screaming, booze-fueled, profanity-laced ear-full once in custody, according to police statements released this morning.
“Why don’t you love me the way I love you?” Rachel Edwards, 24, of Brooklyn, who has just suffered multiple cuts and bruises, shouts at one point to sweetheart Denise Darbeau, who has just suffered a cracked skull and broken arm, according to the lengthy statements.
“Shut the f— up, bitch!” Darbeau, 24, of Queens, responds. “You’re not even hurt. I’m bleeding from the head!”
The statements of Darbeau and Edwards were made public by prosecutors as the couple returned to Manhattan Supreme Court. Both pleaded not guilty to an indictment that alleges they committed felony burglary by angrily rushing behind the customer counter of the West Village fast food joint.
The grand jury that indicted the two women was far more kind to burger flipper and manslaughter parolee Rayon McIntosh, clearing him of all charges in the caught-on-video melee. McIntosh had insisted that he beat the women with the grill scraper in self defense.
The fracas was sparked when another employee checked a $50 bill that Darbeau used to pay for her extra crispy chicken sandwich, McIntosh — who had carried the sandwich to the counter — had testified.
Video from an otherwise un-involved customer’s cell phone appears to show Darbeau swinging at McIntosh, then vaulting the counter. “If my husband gets into a fight, I got her back,” Edwards then appears to shout, striding around the counter to join Darbeau.
“Stop! Stop!” customers can be heard screaming as McIntosh raises and lowers his metal grill scraper.
Today’s newly-released police statements show that the fractured and fractious lovers took a licking, but kept on kicking, berating each other and cops even from their stretchers.
“Don’t touch me! I will f— you up!” Darbeau tells an EMT worker while still at the scene, the statements say. “Don’t put your hands on me.”
“I just want to go home,” the severely injured woman adds, before going full throttle:
“You bitch ass n— s!” she tells cops and EMT workers. “I will wash you. I will wash you n—-s. I’m good. I’m good. I just want to go home. Don’t touch me. You n—-s is p—-,” she adds, making a reference to the female anatomy.
“You are crackers,” Darbeau’s wounded sidekick then joins as they are rushed to Beth Israel Medical Center, according to the statements.
“If I was white you wouldn’t be arresting me,” she adds. “If this was one of your family members, you wouldn’t be doing this. You’re doing this because I’m black. You cracker motherf—-ers.”
The verbiage has not slowed by the time the two reach the hospital.
“You can’t drink,” Darbeau scolds Edwards. “I told you, you can’t drink. You made everything worse than it needed to be.”
“Just shut the f—- up,” she adds, before Edwards can respond.
Three hours later, again despite her head injury, Darbeau tells the cop who’s minding her, “When you take these cuffs off, I’m going to wash you. I’m going to have your job.”
By the evening after the fracas, Edwards is getting booked, and enlightens another cop as to the events of the night before.
“She is my girlfriend,” Edwards tells an officer, referring to Darbeau.
“Last night, we went to Planet Hollywood in Times Square for dinner. I had fish for dinner. Afterwards, we went downtown to the Fat Black Pussy Cat bar. At the bar, we had five shots of tequila. We didn’t drink that much. Afterwards, we went to the McDonalds next door.”
Edwards continues, “I don’t remember anything that happened inside of the McDonalds. I just remember being behind the counter and being hit by the employee behind the counter. I was trying to block being hit with my arm and was hiding underneath the counter. I don’t remember how I got behind the counter.”
The women arrived and left Manhattan Supreme Court together, and are sharing a lawyer, Harold Baker, who has argued strenuously that his clients are victims, not criminals. They will not plead to a felony and will go to trial if they have to, the lawyer said.
Prosecutor Jaime Hickey-Mendoza said in court that the DA’s office would recommend the women get probation, not jail, so long as they plead to the felony burglary charge.
They’re back in court March 7.