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A man is laid out on the ground after taking a single punch from an East Lansing McDonald's employee.

(YouTube screenshot)

EAST LANSING, MI -- A man suffered injuries that police said were not life-threatening after taking a single punch to the face from an employee at a McDonald's near Michigan State University early Thursday morning.

East Lansing police Lt. Steve Gonzalez said police responded at 2:02 a.m. Thursday to the McDonald's, 1024 Grand River Ave., for a report of an assault.

Video of the incident posted to YouTube shows some conversation happening in the restaurant between an unseen man, a McDonald's employee and a patron at the fast food restaurant. A second employee walks toward the group, walks around his coworker and approaches an unseen man.

The employee, wearing a blue shirt, a black McDonald's apron and black hat, bends down and pulls up a man wearing a white shirt. After the man is briefly seen on camera, the McDonald's employee in a blue shirt throws a single left-handed punch.

The blow immediately drops the man in the white shirt and the video cuts out.

Kevin Lange, the Michigan State student who filmed the incident, said the customer came in and was behaving belligerently. Lange said he didn't know what made the customer upset, but the man spit on the counter of the McDonald's and threw a "Caution: Wet Floor" sign at employees behind the counter.

Lange said the McDonald's employees tried to get the man to leave and had some of the workers in the kitchen come out to escort him from the building. One of the men pushed the customer to the ground in the process, he said.

When the man got back up, the McDonald's employee in the blue shirt threw a punch that left him on the ground, Lange said.

"He definitely instigated it," Lange said of the customer. "But, it got taken too far. He didn't have to get punched, he could have got pushed out and told not to come back."

Gonzalez confirmed that the video is of the incident, but said he could not release more information about the people involved in the incident.

"The detective bureau will tie up some loose ends, and they'll refer the case to the prosecutor's office for possible charges," Gonzalez said.

It's unknown if anyone in the incident is a Michigan State student or otherwise affiliated with the university.

Anyone with information on the incident is encouraged to call East Lansing police at 517-351-4220.

Kyle Feldscher is the Capitol education and MSU reporter for MLive Media Group. Reach him via email at kylefeldscher@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter at @Kyle_Feldscher. Read more stories here.