Friday 11 November 2005
horrible story of perversion & stupidity
courier-journal.com - A hoax most cruel
of course McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and a corrections officer would be involved in a story like this...
I only learned of this story tonight, when I happened to turn on my television set, to watch a movie, and then got sucked into watching the ABC Primetime news show.
The story summed up...
A corrections officer obsessed with police, called a McDonald's in another state, claiming to be a local police officer investigating a purse snatching, and that the suspect is a teen girl employee.
He told the assistant manager to call the teen girl employee to come in the back office, strip search her, and take away her clothes and her car keys, effectively trapping the girl in the back office.
And the 51 year old female assistant manager did just that.
Then the manager, the asisstant manager's fiance, got on the phone, was left alone with the teen employee, and the man on the phone instructed the manager to sexually assault the teen.
And the manager did just that.
And it was all caught on videotape.
And through this case, they caught the guy who called on the phone impersonating a police officer, who had perpetrated this hoax, successfully, in no less than 60 times according to the article. (Though who knows how many times it was successful and not reported, and who knows how many times it was attempted but the people involved didn't fall for it.)
I don't care what psychological experts say...
Psychological experts say it is human nature to obey orders, no matter how evil they might seem -- as was illustrated in one of the most famous and frightening human experiments of the 20th century.
..... "Once you accept another person's authority, you become a different person," Blass said. "You are concerned with how well you follow out your orders, rather than whether it is right or wrong."
A rational intelligent person should be able to question authority that seems that suspicious!
It should be incredibly common sense to realize that no police officer would conduct an investigation of a purse snatching over the phone, and that a police officer would not have a civilian conduct a strip search or a cavity search on their employee. And certainly it should be severely common knowledge, (even for someone with an IQ score of 83), that no legal acting police officer would order a civilian to carry out felony sexual assaults.
(At best, this is evidence that the ability to think rationally and a familiarity with the law of the land are not requirements for management at McDonald's.)
Even at the age of 18, I don't believe that I would've submitted to a strip search, no matter what. I would've punched someone in order to run out of that office, if they refused to get the police there in person.
And yes, I think I can say I would do so in that situation.
Because I once worked at a small store at a mall where a key holder (above a regular employee, but not a supervisor) who was on a power trip was ordering me around for a week straight, and finally cornered me in the stock room and raised her arm to hit me... I ducked past her, ran out of the stock room, ran through the store, pausing only briefly to tell the supervisor what happened and that I was quitting effective immediately, and the very next day I called the home office of the chain, told the corporate office the entire story of everything questionable that ever happened in the store. (And I learned that a few weeks later, the entire management was sacked, as well as most of the employees.)
So if I ran out of a store & quit for that relatively minor incident, you can imagine what I would do if someone had suggested a strip search or worse!
Mind you, even if the girl could've escaped... I still think that the other people involved are responsible for their own actions. Clearly the 51 year old stupid assistant manager who made the teen girl employee strip and exposed her to male management & co-workers, is accountable for her own actions & decisions, as is her fiance, the sexual molesting manager.
If I were a manager, I would not have believed, without proof, that the man on the phone was a police officer.
And yes, I believe I can say what I would do in that situation.
Because once, several years ago, a man, in a police uniform, came to my door yelling "Police, open up!". And I refused to open the door until he showed me his badge. And then I refused to allow him into my apartment, when he asked me for proof of my identity. I kept the door closed & locked while I went to another window and checked the street below and saw the police car outside. And then I got my driver's license, and took it to the door and slipped it to him through an only partially ajar screen door, never letting him near me. (Apparently they were seeking for questioning, a young woman who may have been a tenant in my building at some time.)
So if I was that suspicious and cautious about a man, in person, in uniform, you can imagine how suspicious I would be about a man claiming to be a policeman on the phone.
So why did they accept that hoax caller's authority in the first place?
They were either extremely stupid, or they already had it in them to do wrong with the slightest provocation or excuse.
posted by Chloe | Friday 11 November 2005 12:28 AM
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I would say stupid and probably vulnerable to authority like that. The guy must have had his act down good. Who knows how many McD's he called all over the country (there are an awful lot) until he struck the most gullible ones.
By "sexual assault"... I believe the man is charged with sodomy rape. And on Primetime, I believe they said "forced to peform sexual acts"... And the video they showed when they said something like that, showed her kneeling before him, if that gives you a clue.
