A Florida Dunkin’ employee accused of fatally punching a customer who used a racist slur against him pleaded guilty to felony battery and was sentenced to two years of house arrest. A Tampa judge on Monday also ordered Corey Pujols, 27, to complete 200 hours of community service and attend an anger management course.
Vonelle Cook was irate when he entered the Dunkin’ store last May and began yelling about customer service, police and prosecutors said. When Pujols, who is Black, asked him to leave, Cook called him a racial slur, and Pujols punched him.
Vonelle Cook was irate when he entered the Dunkin’ store last May and began yelling about customer service, police and prosecutors said. When Pujols, who is Black, asked him to leave, Cook called him a racial slur, and Pujols punched him.
Pujols was initially charged with manslaughter.
In agreeing to a plea deal, prosecutors considered the “totality of the circumstances,” including Pujols’ youth, his lack of criminal history and the fact that he did not intend to cause Cook’s death, Grayson Kamm, a spokesman for Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren, told the Tampa Bay Times. He said they also considered the behavior of Cook and what he said.
“Two of the primary factors were the aggressive approach the victim took toward the defendant and everyone working with the defendant, and that the victim repeatedly used possibly the most aggressive and offensive term in the English language,” Kamm told the newspaper.
Darrin Johnson, an attorney for Pujols, declined to comment after the hearing.
According to court records, Cook was a regular customer who tried to order coffee at the drive-thru on May 4. But the employees had trouble hearing him, and he began berating them for their poor customer service. He was asked to leave, but he parked his car and went inside the store.
When Cook appeared inside the store, Pujols asked a coworker to call police. Prosecutors said Cook began arguing with Pujols. Once Cook said the racial slur, Pujols walked around the counter and told him not to say that again. When he repeated it, Pujols hit him in the jaw and Cook fell to the floor.
An autopsy said he suffered a skull fracture and brain contusions.
Court records show Cook was a registered sex offender. No one from Cook’s family spoke at Monday’s hearing.
So call someone a name, and you can now get away with murder. What happened to sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me?? Maybe fear of public opinion in the background of this sweetheart deal??? Legal system a farce.
CAN ANYONE SAY DOUBLE STANDARD, AS LONG AS A BLACK CAN KILL ANOTHER PERSON AND WALK WE WILL NEVER GET ALONG AND THIS IS THE WAY THIS PATHETIC GOVERNMENT WORKS NOW THAT WE HAVE BRANDON IN THE SEMI WHITE HOUSE !! TREASON IS THE WORD OF THE DAY, HAVE YOU READ BIDEN’S COWARDICE OF NOT HELPING UKRAINE AGAINST RUSSIA HAS NOW EMBOLDENED CHINA TO SAY THEY ARE WILLING TO HELP RUSSIA AND SAUDI ARABIA IS GOING TO TAKE YUAN FOR PARTIAL PAYMENT FOR OIL WEAKENING OUR FOOTHOLD ON THE WORLD CURRENCY AND ALL THIS IN 16 MONTHS !! WHAT A GREAT JOB THIS TRAITOR IS DOING ! NEXT WILL BE CHINA TAKING TAIWAN !! VIETNAM VET 67-68
Registered sex offender, gets his just desserts.
What absolutely ticks me off is that blacks use the n-word all the time with each other, so what’s so damn offensive about it? It’s offensive enough to kill a man? Absolutely not! Pujols should have been tried for manslaughter.
I feel sorry for the black guy, but I don’t like the statesmen that they made when they said they looked at his behavior and ” what” he said. The guy may have been verbally abusive, but no where in this article does it say he became physically threatening. Whereas the black guy ordered him to leave and should have called the police , but instead, he escalated the problem by coming from behind the counter and confronting the guy and initiating the confrontation. This black guy killed a man for what he said in anger. If the situation had been reversed and it had been a white ( didn’t say) killing a black man, manslaughter would have been the least charge considered. Pujols had better consider himself lucky to be born at a time when justice is not blind.
One less racist sex offender to be free. Should have kept his mouth closed.
Cook got what he asked for, unfortunately the man who punched him didn’t know his own strength, so he is the one who is having to pay the price for a loudmouth raciest idiot, this man will feel guilty over an unseen result of his defense of his people
How can anyone justify the taking of a human life over a spoken curse word? The employee knew that the man was angry because he had told someone to call the police.Then the employee got angry also and punched him hard enough to fracture the man’s skull. It’s evident that the employee was not afraid of the man because he went around the counter to get in position to take aggressive action with the angry man. I only hope that instances like this will come to an end in the USA. I also think GOD knows what was in the hearts of both people and it will be justly dealt with.
Did you read this ” judgment ” . Did to what Cook SAID, Pujol was allowed a plea deal( nothing said about what he got for killing a man). You’ll also note that ,although they call Cook aggressive, they never refer to him as threatening. What is does say is that , having called the police , Pujol escalated the situation by , instead of waiting for the police, he walked around the counter and attacked Cook. Sticks and stones people. But it’s good to know you need to be careful going to Tampa, a city where justice is not blind.
There’s no sense commenting on this article unless you support killing a man for having a big mouth.
HE WON’T BE USING THOSE WORDS AGAIN.
A case of a mouth overloading a punkass. Never let your mouth overload your ass!!