Fake News: McDonald's Manager Did NOT Shoot Man For Putting Soda In His Free Water Cup

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: McDonald's Manager Did NOT Shoot Man For Putting Soda In His Free Water Cup

Did 53-year-old McDonalds manager Jerry Goldberg shoot 25-year-old Kyle Davis for stealing some soda while using a free water cup? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a known fauxtire site that makes up tales about weird crimes, sex acts and incidents of racism for entertainment and satire purposes. It did not happen for real.

The story originated from an article published by Huzlers on July 10, 2018 titled "McDonald's Manager Shoots Man For Putting Soda In His Free Water Cup" (archived here) which opened:

ATLANTA - It is being reported that An Atlanta man was shot inside a local McDonalds for apparently putting soda in his water cup. According to authorities, he was shot by the McDonalds restaurant manager.

Kyle Davis, 25, was shot multiple times by McDonald's store manager Jerry Goldberg, 53, for asking for a water cup and instead putting soda in it. Kyle was shot 3 times and was taken to the nearest hospital. Medical staff say Kyle is expected to live. Jerry told authorities he was tired of people asking for free water cups and getting soda instead, and couldn't take it anymore. "These N*ggas walk in here asking for a water cup and get sprite and sh*t, i said hell nah not this time", said Jerry.

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail and might have thought it was a real news story:

McDonald's Manager Shoots Man For Putting Soda In His Free Water Cup

ATLANTA - It is being reported that An Atlanta man was shot inside a local McDonalds for apparently putting soda in his water cup. According to authorities, he was shot by the McDonalds restaurant manager. Kyle Davis, 25, was shot multiple times by...

But the man pictured in the graphic illustrating the story is definitely not a McDonalds manager. He is actually Stephen Brown, a pedophile who was arrested in 2015:

How 2 victims of sexual abuse caught pedophile 30 YEARS later

Stephen Brown, 62, was arrested March 4 in Peekskill, upstate New York He allegedly traveled there to meet up with a 12-year-old boy He was allegedly found in possession of 15 explicit images of the boy taken when the child was 10 Some 11,000 other illicit images were found at

Huzlers styles itself as a "fauxtire" website and carries a disclaimer at the bottom of each page:

Huzlers.com is the most infamous fauxtire & satire entertainment website in the world. If it's trending on social media you'll find it here!

According to Splinter News the site is run by Pablo Reyes and David Martinez and according to Buzzfeed Reyes is involved with several other fake news websites. They tend to shy away from political stories, opting instead to write for a more "urban" audience, with stories about rappers, criminals and celebrities.

We wrote about huzlers.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

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  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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