Yesterday, a jury voted to dismiss all charges against the McDonald's cashier who used a metal rod to beat two customers who slapped him and then jumped over the counter at the West Village location in October. Rayon McIntosh told DNAInfo he was relieved the jury agreed that he was acting in self-defense during the altercation on October 13, and added that he and other employees had been asking management to get security for their location for months: "We were begging them to get security," McIntosh told them by phone. "The McDonald's itself is a problematic store. It has a high, concentrated number of people every day. In the Village, it's crazy."

Nevertheless, McIntosh says he was "elated" to leave Riker's Island and put the incident behind him. Police sources told DNAinfo that McDonald's management chose not to hire off-duty NYPD officers to patrol the restaurant after the beating because it "wasn't in their financial interest." McIntosh was fired from his job, and now plans to hire a lawyer to take "civil action" against them, though he swears he'll never work at a McDonald's again.

He served ten years for the manslaughter death of a friend in 2000, and took the job when he was released from prison last March as a means of providing for his 11-year-old daughter and getting his life on track. "When I came home [from prison], I had to suck my pride up to work in a McDonald's," he said. "I just came home from doing 11 years and then [the incident] happened. I was doing really good."

He described the attack once again to them, which started when Denise Darbeau and friend Rachel Edwards tried to pay for their food with a $50 bill, and McIntosh wanted to check the authenticity, as was store policy. The two women allegedly taunted McIntosh, calling him a "bitch ass n--ga," and saying "your mother's a bitch." He told DNAInfo, "From my perspective, I was very scared. It was two against one. When you're faced with that kind of situation…your self-preservation kicks in. You're going to defend yourself. [Darbeau] put me in a situation where I had no choice."

Below, you can see the cell phone video of the incident. McIntosh was grateful for capturing it on video: "Whoever that person was who got those shots and uploaded them, may God bless him," he said.