Bizarre Hoax Leads to Strip Searches

[salin]

Bizarre Hoax Leads to Strip Searches
Caller Convinces Restaurant Managers to Strip Search Workers, Customers

March 31 — Restaurant managers across the country have been receiving strange phone calls from someone urging them to strip-search employees or customers to see if they have stolen property.

The latest incident occurred last week in Arizona, when a Taco Bell manager received a call from a man claiming to be a police officer who urged the manager to strip-search a female whom the caller said had stolen a pocketbook.

Authorities said the male manager pulled aside a 17-year-old female customer who fit the description given by the caller and then carried out the search, which included a body cavity search.

more: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/US/Strip_hoax_040331-1.html

[NoPasaran]

1. A body cavity search for a POCKETBOOK?

Holy invasive proceedures Batman!

[damnraddem]

26. Well, TB is a low-cost place.

Maybe their customers tend to have little, teeny pocketbooks.

[TroglodyteScholar]

2. umm

Does Taco Bell train managers to conduct body cavity searches?
:wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf:

[htuttle]

6. Couldn't he get arrested....

...for doing to that a minor?

[mobuto]

11. Couldn't he get arrested...

...for doing that to ANYBODY?

I think the answer is YES.

[Ryan10]

32. And did he...

wash his hands before returning to work?

[damnraddem]

34. Or for that matter, did he wash his hands ...

before doing the search?

[okieinpain]

52. hahahahahahaha, you people are some sick individuals.

[saigon68]

56. he was required by state law to wash his hands before returning to work

Which as a good employee he did.

[damnraddem]

33. I hope not:

the combination of refried beans and body-cavity searches just don't go together very well.

[joeunderdog]

3. In a world of horror and misery...

I somehow get a real kick out of this story. I hope it continues to have legs.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

4. What right does a manager of Burger King have to strip search...

me???????????????

MOFOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf:

:argh:

Nazis!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:puke: :puke:

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

and again......:wtf:

[benfranklin1776]

9. None. Zero. Nada.

Which is why these restaurants are rightfully being sued for, among other things, for failing to adequately train their managerial staff in how not to violate their employees basic human rights. Perhaps this will force some evidently needed reexamination of managerial training practices and perhaps a few lessons in how to treat employees with respect, although treating people with respect should not have to be taught as part of a managerial training course it should be standard practice. As for strip searching customers that is inexcusably criminal on its face but it shows how readily people submit to requests by people pretending to be, or actually "in authority."

[havocmom]

5. Either there are a lot of dumb people running eating places or they are

just looking for an excuse to coerce workers into getting nekkid. This has been going around for several years. Anybody 'snopes' it

[arcane1]

7. god we really are raising them ultra-stupid now, aren't we?

Aside from the sheer moronism of the manager, I can't believe that a customer would submit to such nonsense! If it were an employee I could at least vaguely comprehend it...

but a customer?????

*head explodes*

[prodigal_green]

8. Man, I could really use the money

That 17 year old will get from a massive honking law suit against the Taco Bell chain.

[gold_bug]

10. a variant of human engineering gone bad

I think hackers call this "human engineering" -- the ability to persuade someone over the phone to do something illegal by pretending to an authority (usually involves giving access to sensitive data).

[oostevo]

49. Social engineering.

Human engineering would denote either genetic engineering or building interesting structures out of bodies.

[54anickel]

12. WTF, you can use a phone call as an excuse and get acquitted?

South Dakota Manager Acquitted

In Rapid City, S.D., a former fast-food restaurant manager was accused of holding a 19-year-old female employee against her will and forcing her to strip during a three-hour search in the restaurant's back office. Allan Mathis was acquitted last month of kidnapping and second-degree rape charges in connection with the June incident.

Mathis said that he was following the direction of someone on the telephone who claimed to be a police officer.

"I never wanted to be there, I never wanted to do it in the first place," Mathis said today on Good Morning America. "I was just doing what he told me to do."

Prosecutors said a videotape showed Mathis sexually assaulting the woman.

[54anickel]

13. I cannot believe how stupid and gulliable we have become as a nation -

has the Patriot Act and the fear fear terror terror mantra somehow kicked in a reverse evolution process?

[BiggJawn]

46. I can. Baaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

A Nation of Sheep. Moronic Sheep.

I'm bookmarking this for a response to people who admonish me to "Don't call Amurricans Morons!"...

baaa.

[DoNotRefill]

14. Sounds like a good way to end up dead.

God help anybody who tried that with my wife....she'd leave, and if they tried to stop her, they'd stand a fair to middling chance of getting a .45 round in their face for their trouble...and it'd be well earned (not to mention legally justified here).

On the positive side, I'd imagine that the 17 year old will get a hefty settlement offer. It can't make it right, but it will help.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

16. A gun is the only solution if you are being kidnapped and in....

effect they have been kidnapped.

Show them the gun and they WILL back off!

[bif]

15. This smacks of Urban Legend

[Tempest]

18. Maybe a variation of one?

http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/shoplift.htm

[The_Casual_Observer]

29. Did they have to soak the decorative cactus

in gasoline and burn it because of the deadly worms in it too?

[Forkboy]

35. It really happened here in Ma

Just a couple of weeks ago managers at various Wendy's here in Ma got these same calls.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

17. This is wrong in so many ways.

OK, the managers are stupid, gullible, and morally bankrupt to do this, but the victims baffle me as well. How can they acquiesce to this?

[benfranklin1776]

19. My reaction exactly.

But I remember that old psych experiment where people kept administering what they were told were greater voltages of electric shocks to a group they were told were victims, simply because they were told by a person "in authority" to do it. They did so even when they showed the supposed victims of the shocks writhing in pain. It shows disturbingly how too many people submit to violations of the most fundamental human rights simply because someone in a position of power asks them to. I don't know if its hard wiring of humans to be naturally submissive to authority, or whether in this the modern "security" state in which we have been conditioned, by a pervasive degree of ever escalating intrusions on our right to privacy, to respond automatically and unthinkingly to such invasive requests. Whatever the reasons its implications are, as you say, disturbing on a number of levels.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

21. I recall that study wasn't it from Berkely and recently posted in the net?

Say within the last year?

[benfranklin1776]

27. Could have been yes. Although the one I was thinking was older.

Shows you when I last took psych! :-) It was called the Milgram Experiment and done at Yale in 1961-1962 although apparently there have been reenactments.

http://www.new-life.net/milgram.htm
http://www.milgramreenactment.org/pages/section.xml?location=3

[salin]

37. a different experiment at the rival U (25 years ago) - also disturbing....

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/relaged/970108prisonexp.html

http://www.prisonexp.org/index.html
(from the intro page: )
Welcome to the Stanford Prison Experiment web site, which features an extensive slide show and information about this classic psychology experiment. What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? These are some of the questions we posed in this dramatic simulation of prison life conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University.

How we went about testing these questions and what we found may astound you. Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress. Please join me on a slide tour of describing this experiment and uncovering what it tells us about the nature of Human Nature.

[benfranklin1776]

39. Quite.

Particularly revealing in reading your links on that study was the behavior of the guards. It was most sadistic when they thought no one was watching. It underscores the absolute need for official accountability, checks and balances on power, and meaningful oversight.

[salin]

41. interesting papers by the principal experimentor

to recent times and circumstances - cautionary (and yet somehow, as I read them, hopeful... some folks get it...)

http://www.zimbardo.com/downloads/2003%20Evil%20Chapter.pdf
A Situationist Perspective on the Psychology of Evil: Understanding How Good People Are Transformed into Perpetrators.

worth the read.

Also

The Political Psychology of Terrorist Alarms
http://www.zimbardo.com/downloads/2002%20Political%20Psychology%20of%20Terrorist%20Alarms.pdf
excerpt:
There are terrorists who are indeed dangerous, who hate some of what America stands for in their eyes, and will try to attack us in various ways, including suicide bombings. Security and preparedness are essential components in countering terrorism, but so are honesty, transparency and accountability of our leaders in whom we must trust. While we prepare to save our bodies we must not lose our minds. Our government is not getting the best scientific advice available on how to construct terror alerts, on how to educate the public in this new realm, on how to manage man-made disasters that require different models than traditional natural disasters, and on how to think like terrorists in selecting probable targets for attack. We need to reassess our full-coverage security of venues unlikely to ever be considered targets by terrorists, such as high school sports events, so as to focus limited municipal resources on higher probability targets of symbolic, sentimental value, Disneyland, for example, or with major disruptive value, such as urban subways. High levels of sustained stress of many citizens of all ages can have a greater long-term destructive impact on the nation than the consequences of any single terrorist attack....

[benfranklin1776]

44. Good stuff.

Thanks much! I agree that understanding is the first step in changing.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

40. Actually that was the study I was recalling..thanks

[salin]

42. anytime

actually looking for it took me to a link to the experimentors page - linked above a couple of interesting, recent (last 2 years - which for an academic is recent) papers.

[NashVegas]

45. Peter Gabriel Wrote Two Songs About This

"Shock the Monkey" and "We Do What We're Told (Milgrim's 37)"

[Feanorcurufinwe]

22. It reminds of how so many people

calmly follow the instructions of their executioners, digging their own graves, kneeling on command, etc. -- wouldn't you rather die fighting or running than kneeling? I've never understood that...

[benfranklin1776]

30. Shock and utter incomprehension maybe.

At some level the mind may not be willing or able to deal with the unexpected horror of the situation for which it is unprepared and shuts down its normal reactions. That is one thing that authoritarians do is always attempt to keep their subjects off balance and in constant fear as a means of psychological manipulation.

[NYC]

24. Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram.

Well worth reading.

[benfranklin1776]

28. And how. Disturbing on a number of levels.

Makes you appreciate how totalitarian regimes acquire and maintain power. This blind acquiescence to authority is their greatest ally.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

20. That manager ought to be arrested for rape

and it is TOTALLY fucking disgusting that the one in South Dakota was aquitted...IGNORANCE is no excuse.

[havocmom]

38. especially if he was 'ignorant' for 3 friggin hours!

There are just some people looking to get orders to harm others. The wing nut violence advocates rely on that little quirk when they get the hate up in their followers.

"I didn't know it was wrong"
"God told me to"
"She was asking for it"
all = the same lie and attempt to avoid thinking and acting responsibly

[damnraddem]

23. Bizarre hoax plus ...

some weak minds led to strip searches. The latter will now lead to some costly litigation. Hurrah for tort lawyers, say I.

[yellowcanine]

25. How convenient

Strip search a young female and then claim you did it in response to a phone call from someone you don't even know. I am sorry - that dog won't hunt. Anyway, extreme stupidity is not a valid defense against 2nd degree sexual assault.

[rocktivity]

31. But what's the motive here?

When you call somebody and get them donate to or invest in something phony, the money is your reward. When you call somebody and convince them to give you their credit card or social security number, the number is your reward. When you make an obscene phone call, the reaction of the recipient is your reward. And I once saw a news story about a scam where a woman gets a call from a lawyer who says that her husband is in big trouble, but he can get out of it if she meets him at a hotel with a payoff. She ends up getting robbed and raped. Again, the perp's reward is clear.

But since this so-called police officer never actually sees the result of his "handiwork," what is HIS reward? Does he take some kind of pride in his ability to create so much gullibility and humiliation? Or does it turn him on somehow, which would explain why there's been a rash of such calls? This doesn't sound like a mere prank to me, but more like a sickness.

:headbang:
rocknation

[w4rma]

47. think phone sex. (nt)

[rocktivity]

50. Phone sex is mutually rewarding

unless I'm not being imaginative enough...

:P
rocknation

[salin]

53. think... obscene sexual phone calling on steroids.

gratifying only to one.... probably in part to enjoying the intended degradation of another person.

[discordian]

36. I'd violate his rights in return

His right to walk around with an intact skull that is. Put me in a compromising position and then try to violate the "bubble" and you're putting yourself in a world of danger.

[Blasphemer]

43. This can't be for real.... can it?

Taco Bell will be shelling out some big bucks if this is true. How could any restaurant manager think they have that right under ANY circumstances? I would imagine that they are told to call the police if they suspect a criminal is on premises.

[Runcible Spoon]

48. Lemme guess, she was suspected of having her clit pierced?

:shrug:

[raifield]

51. I'll check

:9

Damn, I'm sorry, but I had to post the nescessary reply. It was crying out to be posted.

[newyorican]

54. If someone did that to my daughter..

I'd kill him on the spot. In a very painful and public manner.

[xchrom]

55. i'm not eating at the right taco bell's.

[Voltaire99]

57. What the acquittal in the Mathis case tells us about America

It's probably true that obedience to authority explains why the victims of corporate stripsearching allow themselves to be violated. Economic desperation is part of the answer, too.

But what explains the jury acquitting Allan Mathis in the South Dakota case? Is this the ethos of obedience at work, too, obliterating sense and sympathy?

There's a context for understanding how Americans become "sheeple." Over the past two to three decades, our society has been taught several painful lessons in obedience to power:

--the decimation of our working class and the miring of the decaying middle class in staggering debt
--the rise of government authority at the expense of the Bill of Rights
--the subjugation of employees to humiliations in mandatory drug testing and psychological profiling
--the savage recalculation of continuity in American life wrought by the elevation of the market economy, with its downsizing, mergers, and now outsourcing
--the rise of an anti-labor right-wing department store chain as the largest single employer
--and, since 9/11, the ongoing treatment of each American as a suspect.

Train a people to act like sheep, year after year, and soon enough, they will agree that someone who was "just doing what he was told" is spotless--the perfect lamb, as pained as your daughter to have had to follow orders to put his hand up her ass at work to check for contraband.