McDonald’s employee gets probation for ‘dumb comments’ about shooting 

POWELL (WNE) — When a young McDonald’s employee told a coworker in March that he might get his gun and “air this place out,” the remark was “very stupid” and disruptive, a prosecutor said, but it didn’t amount to a felony crime. 

Blaine Duzan, a 20-year-old Powell resident, was initially charged with a felony count of terroristic threats for the comment. 

Last week, however, the county attorney’s office agreed to reduce it to a misdemeanor count of breach of peace, and Duzan agreed to plead guilty. 

“I will not be saying anything like that again,” he assured the Park County Circuit Court.

Duzan was ordered to pay $820, credited for the three days he served in jail after his arrest and placed on six months of unsupervised probation. 

To convict Duzan of terroristic threats, prosecutors would have had to show he intended to or recklessly disregarded the risk of causing the evacuation of a building or of causing serious public inconvenience. 

Deputy Park County Prosecuting Attorney Ericka Smith said she didn’t believe she could prove that in court. 

“While breach of peace doesn’t sound like much of a charge after behavior like this and the actions that law enforcement had to take to ensure the safety of the community, it is in fact the charge that fits the behavior,” Smith said at the 19 May hearing. 

She added that she doesn’t believe Duzan is a danger to the community. 

For his part, Circuit Court Judge Joey Darrah said he didn’t believe Duzan intended for his comments to be a threat and didn’t think they rose to the level of a felony. 

The judge told Duzan to watch what he says. 

“You do have a First Amendment right to express your feelings and do those things,” Darrah said, “but you got to be careful when it starts to look like it’s a threat.”

This story was published on May 26, 2026.