Georgia
Georgia dad arrested for leaving young kids at McDonald’s to attend job interview — ex-NFL star Antonio Brown vows to help family: report
A Georgia father of three was arrested for leaving his young children unattended at a McDonald’s to go to a nearby interview.
Chris Louis, 24, allegedly walked with his three kids from his apartment to the restaurant in Augusta just before 4:30 p.m. on March 22, according to The Augusta Press.
The youngsters – ages 1, 6 and 10 – spent their time alone in the restaurant, which has an indoor play area attached to the dining room.
Louis was seen leaving the fast food joint, returning shortly after to check on his kids before leaving again, a worried customer told police, the outlet reported.
Richmond County Sheriff deputies arrived at the restaurant and located the unharmed, unaccompanied minors, who remained inside the store until their father returned.
Louis arrived back at the McDonald’s just before 6:20 p.m., where police confronted him for leaving his children alone in public.
Louis, who doesn’t own a car, told police he left his children behind because he didn’t want them to walk back to his home as he went to the interview, the outlet reported.
Police waited inside with Louis until the children’s mom arrived to take her kids home.
Louis was arrested and charged with deprivation of a minor.
The news of Louis’ arrest got the attention of former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown.
“Story caught me by surprise. A dad just trying to find a way to make money for his family. I know he shouldn’t just leave his kids, but some people don’t have the means for babysitting, etc,” Brown wrote on GoFundMe.
Brown says he hasn’t spoken to Louis yet but has hopes to talk with the father.
The 36-year-old claims said set up the fundraiser with the help of GoFundMe to ensure the money would go directly to Louis.
“Chris was on the Pursuit of Happiness & sometimes ppl just need help,” Brown wrote on X.
The father of six has donated $1,000 himself.
The fundraiser created late Tuesday night has raised over $28,000 of the $50,000 goal in the first five hours.
The arrest divided the internet on Louis’ situation.
“You simply can’t leave your kids like that and I get how this happened. But there are plenty of questions,” one X user commented.
“Yeah, it’s a little iffy on the 1yr old, but dude was trying to get a job. Give him a break,” a second user said.
“I know it’s a desperate situation and brother made a mistake but an understandable one. All he could think about was the hope of a job,” a fourth added.
“Dude was literally doing the best he could with what he has. I commend him for that, it’s not easy,” another comment said.
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Kirk Fordice-like Rick Jackson is sounding a whole lot like Daniel Kirkwood Fordice as he tries to be elected Georgia’s next governor.
Fordice came out of nowhere — actually, Vicksburg is somewhere but you know what I mean — in 1991 to become a two-term Mississippi governor.
He had money but nothing like Jackson, a billionaire businessman who’s also trying to emerge from nowhere politically to win Georgia’s top office.
“The establishment hated Trump, because they couldn’t control him. They are going to hate me,” Jackson says in an ad for Georgia’s Republican Primary on May 19, sounding like one of my favorite Mississippi governors — Fordice, because of his unpredictable personality (he could vilify or charm you, all in one sentence), not his politics. He died in 2004 of cancer.
I stood by a cafe entrance one morning, waiting to cover a Fordice speech. When he appeared, I stuck out my hand to shake his. “I’m not shaking your damn hand. You’re part of the problem down there (referring to the newspaper),” he told me, smiling and moving on.
Jackson rose to become one of economic giant-Georgia’s wealthiest people. He came from Atlanta’s rough midtown area, ending up in the foster care system. He left college due to poor financial circumstances.
The 71-year-old Jackson wormed his way into the dynamic city’s business scene in the late 1970s, mostly of the healthcare variety with mixed success before starting a workforce staffing and services company and later an antibiotics manufacturing plant. He turned those businesses into billion-dollar enterprises.
“It’s God’s money,” he said in rural Blakely, and he’s been charitable with it.
Jackson doesn’t try to hide his vast wealth. His family lives in a 48,000-square-foot mansion at Cumming, a place of nearly 100,000 people near Atlanta in Forsyth County, which once promoted its almost all-white population as a virtue.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Bill Torpy recently wrote that Jackson will spend a ton of his own money in seeking another mansion, the one occupied by Georgia’s governor. Torpy noted that present Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was once heavily favored to win the primary race, but he’s fallen behind Jackson’s bold money bid.
“The one-time front-runner in the Republican primary (Jones) has been relegated to No. 2, the result of a $100 million Mack truck running him over.
Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, a man with a sly smile and reptilian gaze, is the guy driving that truck,” Torpy wrote.
The GOP field includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who spurned Trump’s demand to find 11,780 votes that would’ve allowed him to win Georgia in 2020.
Fordice was effective with some bombastic rhetoric during his run for governor, but I don’t remember it reaching the histrionic level employed by Jackson. In a major ad blitz, often referencing (Georgia college student) Laken Riley’s murderer, Jackson promises that unauthorized immigrants committing violent crimes will be “deported or departed … any questions?”
In another ad, Jackson growled, “Like President Trump, I don’t owe anybody anything, and like you, I’m sick of career politicians.”
Fordice spent only $1 million to get himself elected Mississippi’s governor. He somewhat sneaked up on the establishment, riding no escalator to the first floor of his Vicksburg concrete river mats-contracting office to declare his intentions. Who could ever forget his announcement seeking the governorship that ran on page 5 of the Clarion Ledger?
Recent polling ahead of Georgia’s May primaries for governor shows the eventual Republican nominee faces a strong Democrat in the November general election, most likely former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. That’ll require another whole pot of money.
— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired Mississippi newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
Gulfstream recently announced a $5 million investment in Georgia education, welcoming students and leaders to its Savannah headquarters.
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