{"id":176540,"date":"2026-02-13T13:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/176540\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T13:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:40:10","slug":"man-accused-of-putting-california-mcdonalds-manager-in-chokehold-over-perceived-immigration-status-the-mercury-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/176540\/","title":{"rendered":"Man accused of putting California McDonald\u2019s manager in chokehold over perceived immigration status \u2013 The Mercury News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A man was arrested on suspicion of impersonating a police officer after San Diego police say he put a McDonald\u2019s manager in a chokehold for being an \u201cillegal alien\u201d Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The incident occurred around noon when witnesses said a man entered a University City McDonald\u2019s on Novel Drive near Genesee Avenue and grabbed the manager from behind, wrapping his arm around the employee\u2019s neck, said San Diego police Lt. Cesar Jimenez.<\/p>\n<p>The man said the manager was in the country illegally and claimed he was detaining the manager, Jimenez said. Coworkers and security guards intervened and forced the man out of the store.<\/p>\n<p>San Diego police were called and learned the man was not a law enforcement officer, investigators said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe understand how concerning this can be for members of our community,\u201d Jimenez said. \u201cWe want to assure residents that impersonating a law enforcement officer is a crime and the San Diego Police Department takes any reports of this nature very seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 40-year-old man was booked on suspicion of impersonating an officer and battery, according to online arrest records.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators asked anyone with further information about the incident to contact Det. Sgt. Nick Zastrow at (858) 552-1756.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man was arrested on suspicion of impersonating a police officer after San Diego police say he put&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,723,138,14,181,1338,100],"class_list":{"0":"post-176540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","13":"tag-immigration","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-morning-wire","16":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}