A woman put down an order at a KFC drive-thru in Lexington, Kentucky, and when the wait dragged, she decided to allegedly settle the matter herself by pulling out a gun from the trunk of her car.
Nayda Rivera Roman, 33, faces one first-degree wanton endangerment charge over an incident on Richmond Road. (via WKYT) The encounter itself happened months ago, on May 11, when she was waiting on food that was too slow to arrive. As per reports, Roman initially argued with the restaurant crew over why her order hadn’t arrived, then she left the line.
That wasn’t Roman storming off, though. Instead, she circled the building and pulled into the lot with her car. An arrest citation describes Roman getting out, popping the trunk open and lifting an AR-15-style assault rifle from inside. She then raised the weapon toward a worker, holding it in a “threatening manner,” according to LEX 18. Then she put it down and drove away.
The case sat for weeks after that, but now, Roman has been arrested.
The long trail that led to Roman’s arrest in July
Officers reportedly turned up at the restaurant that day, but the driver was already gone — though not from the security camera footage. Investigators began with the restaurant’s own cameras, which gave them a vehicle. Police then realized it had crossed paths with that car before, so the video their body cameras recorded helped attach a name to the case.
An employee later identified Roman in a photo lineup, and Sheriff’s deputies in Fayette County took her into custody in late July, roughly 11 weeks after the confrontation. (per Law & Crime)
Lexington, being the state’s second largest city, sits in the middle of Kentucky. Local news stations don’t agree on Roman’s arrest date, with LEX 18 giving July 28, and FOX 56 citing July 27. While no person was harmed during the incident, Roman might be looking at serious jail time, and here’s why.
What the charge means for Roman
The count against Nayda Rivera Roman is not a minor one. According to Kentucky law, the charge is reserved for people who act with “extreme indifference to the value of human life” and thereby put someone else in real danger of dying or being badly hurt. The state classifies it as a Class D felony.
If a trigger is pulled, then the 2024 change introduced by the lawmakers makes it so that firing a gun during the offense lifts the count to a Class C felony. Roman faces the lower grade, since no shot had been reported fired at the drive-thru. No court date has been reported publicly, but a Class D conviction, the sources add, carry a prison term of one to five years.
