Masked gunmen kill one, injure six at New Jersey Chick-fil-A

Masked gunmen turned a busy Chick-fil-A on Route 22 in Union Township into a crime scene as workers and diners scrambled for safety in the middle of a Saturday night rush. Police found seven victims inside the restaurant at 2319 US-22 W, Union, NJ 07083; one later died and six others were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

The shooting happened around 9 p.m. on April 11, 2026, near Gelb Avenue in a commercial strip where the fast-food location normally serves drive-thru customers and stays open into the evening. Witness video showed panic outside the store, including a person in a mask running through the parking lot with a handgun as customers and staff fled the area.

The Union County Prosecutor’s Office said Union police responded to reports of shots fired and found the seven victims at the restaurant. As of Sunday afternoon, no arrests had been made. Investigators said the shooting did not appear to have been random, and officials said there was no immediate ongoing threat to the public.

For restaurant workers, the violence cut directly into the most basic assumptions of the job: that a shift ends with cleanup, cash-outs and closing checks, not emergency responders and a lockdown. A place built around speed, handoffs and constant foot traffic became, for a few minutes, a trap where staff and guests were in the same line of fire. The incident raises immediate questions about how chains protect employees who spend their shifts in open, public-facing spaces, especially at night when drive-thru lanes and dining rooms are still active.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill said she had been briefed on the shooting and called it deeply troubling, adding that the state stands with the Union Township community. The prosecutor’s office said the case remains active and ongoing and asked anyone with information to contact law enforcement or submit anonymous tips through Union County Crime Stoppers.

The restaurant sits along one of New Jersey’s busiest retail corridors, where a routine dinner stop can turn into a mass-casualty event in seconds. For the workers who were behind the counter, on register or moving orders through the lane, the aftermath is not just a police investigation. It is a shift that ended in fear, trauma and a workplace that may not feel ordinary again for a long time.