Yuba City McDonald’s Manager in ICU After Hot Oil Attack

Jacob Smith, 20, was counting the closing receipts at a Yuba City McDonald’s on May 30 when a co-worker allegedly threw hot cooking oil on him. His mother says he has second-degree burns across roughly 22 percent of his body and is now in the intensive care unit at UC Davis Medical Center, with skin graft surgery scheduled for his back and neck this week.

Jalani Jermaine Bluett, 23, has since been arraigned on three felony charges and is being held without bail in Sutter County Jail. Police investigators say they have not determined a motive, and Smith’s family says he still does not know why the attack happened.

The Closing Shift at 1150 Harter Parkway

Smith had worked for McDonald’s for more than three years, starting at a Stabler Lane location in Yuba City before transferring to the Harter Parkway restaurant about three months earlier. He was the closing shift manager there. Bluett was already employed at Harter Parkway when Smith arrived, according to Amber Smith, Jacob’s mother, who spoke with the local Appeal-Democrat newspaper and local television stations.

At 11:12 p.m. on that Saturday, Smith was in the back office preparing to count the night’s money. A third employee was washing dishes in another part of the building. Amber Smith told KCRA her son was in the office when he “saw out of the corner of his eye something” before the burning liquid hit him on his right side. Bluett allegedly ran from the building immediately.

In the minutes that followed, Smith tore off his burning shirt, locked the restaurant’s front doors, and called his manager. Still in shock, he apologized on the phone for not having the restaurant cleaned up. He told the responding police officer he thought the substance had been hot coffee. It was only at the hospital that doctors determined it was cooking oil.

“The victim was up walking around ambulatory and able to communicate with them, but had obvious burn marks on his upper torso and his face area,” Yuba City Police Lt. Michael Bullard told ABC10.

Officers had responded to a call reporting that someone had been “burned by a hot liquid” at the restaurant, per the Yuba City Police Department. They identified Bluett as the suspect that night and issued a warrant for his arrest.

From the Emergency Room to the Burn Unit

Smith was taken by ambulance to UC Davis Medical Center. Burns covered the right side of his face, neck, shoulder, and upper body; he had raised his left arm to shield himself, leaving the left hand and fingertips damaged as well. Amber Smith told reporters her son had second-degree burns across roughly 22 percent of his body and was in excruciating pain during wound care. His fingertips were among the most painful areas, she said.

By Tuesday, Smith had been moved from the emergency department to a specialized burn unit. Amber Smith wrote in the family’s GoFundMe fundraiser that some areas involve “pretty deep burns” and that doctors were considering skin graft surgery for his back and neck. “Because it was oil it can cause much more deep damage,” she wrote. Oil reaches higher temperatures than boiling water and clings to skin, which can extend the depth of a burn beyond its initial surface appearance. In his own message posted to the GoFundMe, Smith thanked God specifically for saving his eye.

The injuries have left Smith unable to work while costs accumulate. “He now faces a long and painful recovery process that will include ongoing medical care, treatments, and time away from work,” Amber Smith wrote. “While Jacob focuses on healing, he will be unable to work and earn an income. The financial burden of lost wages, everyday living expenses, transportation, and recovery-related costs will continue to grow in the weeks and months ahead.”

The Case Against Jalani Bluett

Bluett left the scene immediately after the attack. His family reported him missing the following morning, telling the Sutter County Sheriff’s Office they were concerned for his wellbeing. Deputies spent most of Sunday searching and located him shortly after midnight on June 1 in the 8300 block of Highway 99 in Live Oak, California.

1. May 30, 11:12 p.m.: Attack at 1150 Harter Parkway; Yuba City police issue an arrest warrant for Bluett
2. May 31, Sunday morning: Bluett’s family reports him missing to the Sutter County Sheriff’s Office
3. June 1, shortly after midnight: Sutter County deputies locate Bluett on Highway 99 in Live Oak and arrest him
4. June 4, Wednesday: Arraigned in Sutter County Superior Court; pleads not guilty to all three counts
5. June 12, Friday: Preliminary hearing scheduled, at which prosecutors will present evidence for the court to determine whether Bluett should stand trial

The Sutter County District Attorney’s Office filed three counts: assault with a deadly weapon or instrument other than a firearm, mayhem, and battery with serious bodily injury. Bullard confirmed Bluett was “held to answer on assault with a deadly weapon, mayhem, serious felony assault resulting in great bodily injury” at the Wednesday arraignment, and is currently held without bail. Mayhem under California law typically involves causing permanent disfigurement or disabling injury to another person.

No Warning, No Known Motive

Smith told his mother he didn’t know Bluett on a personal level and had no sense of any conflict between them. Amber Smith confirmed the two had worked closing shifts together without friction.

“When he worked with him … there hasn’t been a problem,” she told the Appeal-Democrat. “They got along fine.”

The Sutter County Sheriff’s Office released a missing person notice for Bluett describing him as “considered at risk due to a diagnosis and vulnerabilities.” Sierra Pedley, the department’s public information officer, confirmed he has “special needs, in some capacity” but said the department was “unable to comment on a specific special need and diagnosis.”

As his mother, it broke my heart when he looked at me and said, ‘Why would he do this to me?’

Amber Smith wrote those words in the GoFundMe she set up for her son. Yuba City police said investigators have not determined a motive, and the case remains open.

Fast Food’s 77,000-Incident Safety Record

Smith was managing a closing shift when the attack occurred, the kind of late-night window that workplace safety researchers have specifically flagged as high-risk in fast-food environments. In December 2021, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) published a first-of-its-kind analysis of 911 call logs from McDonald’s, Burger King, Carl’s Jr., and Jack in the Box locations across nine California cities, covering incidents from 2017 through 2020.

• 77,000 violent or threatening incidents logged at 643 fast-food locations during that three-year period
• Some locations generating up to seven 911 calls per week
• Incident categories included assault, robbery, verbal threats, and weapons-related encounters
• The SEIU characterized the cumulative pattern as a “crisis of violence” concentrated on fast-food workers

That report concluded that fast-food corporations had failed to take meaningful action to protect workers despite repeated calls from employees to do so. The SEIU specifically cited late-night hours as a structural vulnerability, calling for adequate staffing on closing shifts, hired security officers, adjusted operating hours, and improved store layouts and lighting. Workers interviewed for the report described difficulty getting supervisors to treat violent incidents at closing time as worth reporting.

In response to those findings, McDonald’s said its corporate-owned restaurants require managers and crew to complete a comprehensive workplace violence prevention training program, with the same materials available to franchise operators. Whether the Harter Parkway restaurant is a corporate or franchised location has not appeared in any court or police record connected to this case.

A Letter from the Burn Unit

The family’s GoFundMe, set up with a $14,000 goal, had gathered nearly $13,000 in donations by Friday. Amber Smith said she launched the campaign once it became clear her son’s recovery would run for weeks or months, with Smith unable to earn an income throughout. She said the community response has been overwhelming.

“My son has an amazing spirit and in the midst of all of this has been positive and trying to make us feel better,” she said. She described Smith as a genuinely good-natured young man with an upbeat spirit, engaged and working hard to build a life for himself before the attack upended everything.

Smith wrote his own message to supporters from the burn unit, thanking his family for being “so incredibly supportive and loving” and friends who checked on him every day. He addressed the anger that might be expected from someone lying burned in a hospital bed. “As much as I want to be angry, or want to hate people and be scared of people, it’s just so hard to be when I have so many people showing their love for me,” he wrote. “I’m not sad, and I’m not angry, and the pain doesn’t cause me grief because I know it’s necessary to heal.”

His preliminary hearing in Sutter County Superior Court is set for June 12.