A woman fired from her job at a New Jersey Taco Bell is accused of setting off pepper spray in the fast-food restaurant, making customers and her former co-workers ill, NJ.com reported.

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Eight employees and two customers were inside the fast-food restaurant in West Long Branch on Saturday afternoon when she allegedly dispersed the pepper spray into a storage room while she waited to get picked up, the website reported.

According to employees at the restaurant, the woman had been fired for being late and for excessive absences, NJ.com reported.

According to a manager at the Taco Bell , the woman tore up her termination papers and ignored a manager’s request for her to wait in the lobby. Then she dispensed the pepper spray.

"We were all coughing because of it," restaurant manager Jaila Padro told NJ.com.

According to Padro, the woman told her colleagues “she would be back later on tonight to trash our dining area."

No charges have been filed, police said.

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Fulton DA Fani Willis (center) with Nathan J. Wade (right), the special prosecutor she hired to manage the Trump case and had a romantic relationship with, at a news conference announcing charges against President-elect Donald Trump and others in Atlanta, Aug. 14, 2023. Georgia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, upheld an appeals court's decision to disqualify Willis from the election interference case against Trump and his allies. (Kenny Holston/New York Times)

Credit: NYT