I'm lovin' it.

I'm speechless. WTF.

Late shift's lousy: "Make
more fries," they say, "and then suck
the manager off."

That video has
the two things that turn me on:
Hot young girls and fear.

Okay, given that this is pretty horrible (and the guy who received the sodomy, and the guy who made the call should end up in jail)...
Am I the only one wondering how the girl could be that stupid?

Well, I, for one, am glad to see that McDonald's is still hiring the mentally handicapped.

Well, we used to do stuff like that. Only we called it "D&D", and it was mostly geeky pale dudes and fat chicks with bad skin. And no nudity. And we only got busted by the cops once, and that was for pissing on the neighbor's rose bushes.

Good times, good times.

And yes, this woman should get a prime place in the "Dumbass Hall of Fame" when it opens in Cleveland someday.

Donna Summers???

I'd like to think she in naive, and sheltered. I'd also like to think that she has brothers who will be waiting for the jagoff on the phone on that fine day when he gets out of the slam.
And they tear his dick off.

Let's see, it's not April Fool's day.
This is on ABC not some sites better left unmentioned.

I don't get it. It don't. make. sense.

If MacDonald's is training the next managers of the future, then the terrorists have already won.

Wow. Ace of Spades is disturbing story central. Man, that's messed up.

So, the guy who made the phone calls worked at a prison. Maybe somebody should look into the possibility that he's been committing human rights abuses against the prisoners?

I can't believe there were so many people falling for that ploy. The only thing I can figure is that the guy on the phone knew enough scary sounding jargon to make people feel threatened into doing something that stupid.

Wow. and even more wow, when you factor in the 70 locations, and other cases with sexual molestation.

Yeah, the dude in the video, the former fiance, he's going down too. It wouldn't even bother me if his only real crime is sheer stupidity, because anyone who would fall for that probably should be locked up.

You want her to do what now? Who is this again? Buh bye now.

Wow Ace I just learned what my trust level is with you, and this is it! There is no way in hell I am clicking to watch this video.

C'mon, I think everyone is looking at this from the wrong angle by highlighting the stupidity of the McDonald's employees. Personally, I think we must all instead acknowledge that the caller, this Dave Stewart, is one helluva pimp.

I mean, to be able to talk girls into this sort of thing, and do so for *10* years-- seriously, I can't imagine what I would've done with this power in college. It's like the Bene Gesserit Weirding Way, only with sodomy.

My name is a fucking word, indeed.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

This isn't funny, it's sick. Both the guys should be recieving forced sodomy soon.

But the girl is pretty attractive.

Reminiscent of the old psych experiment where people are told to ''test pain response'' in subjects by turning up the dial.
The testers are actually the tested.
They are commanded to turn up the dial to ''fatal'' levels, just to see if they're willing to kill in the name of ''following orders''.

The article states that the prison employee deliberately targetted fast food joints over the past 10 yrs. He knew the brutish mgr's would ''follow orders'' that even the janitors refused.

This animal ignored her employees' scruples, and was unmoved by the poor girl's petitions for help and mercy, all over an alleged theft of property.
Micky D's should be sued.
The sadistic mgr and her nazi boyfriend should be locked up.

"This isn't funny, it's sick."

Can't it be both?

This is one good illustration of why I teach my 11-year-old girl not to trust authority figures.

This is pretty much a slam dunk false imprisonment claim against the perps. The question is how much does McDonald's get itself off the hook by "proving" that it had trained managers not to fall for this kind of thing.

Ooh, I wouldn't mind being that girl's lawyer.

Micky D's should be sued.
The sadistic mgr and her nazi boyfriend should be locked up.

I don't think Ronald McDonald had anything to do with this. Luckily, both the manager and her boyfriend were locked up.

Seriously, though. Dave Stewart AND Donna Summer(s)?

Next you're gonna tell me that someone named George Michaels got busted soliciting men in a park restroom or something.

Oh man, I just can't help myself. One more.

sodomy's upside:
your burning shame makes my next
Big Mac that much better

This is easily the funniest news story I've read since that train hit the school bus a while back.

Micky D's should be sued.

Yes, because all good things in life come from suing large corporations, especially super large double plus ungood filthy rich American companies like McDonald's. The Karl Rove of the fast food industry.

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, did they make your coffee hot, too?

I love the last part of the article that points out there is actually at least one tiny bit of common sense precaution in their training materials pointing out that real police officers don't ask you to do weird shit, but the reporter concludes with "none of the employees remember seeing it". Because, in the end, it's always the fault of some business somewhere.

Reminiscent of the old psych experiment where people are told to ''test pain response'' in subjects by turning up the dial.

I remember that. They weren't whimpy about it, either. They had the fake subject of the test wail and plead for his life, and still most everyone kept turning the dial because the stern psychologist figure over their shoulder demanded it. Really made a point about how easily we hand over our responsibility to others.

...Probably because we figure we can always sue someone rich and far away when we do something stupid. Bam! I have a theme.

You're referring to Milgram's experiment. People do what you ttell them to.

I would suspect that McD's is being sued and that their offer didn't include enough zero's to cause the victim to sign off on that non-disclosure agreement.

That explains why the girl agreed to the interview, but not why the manager agreed to the interview. The other defendants were smart enough to stay away from the cameras. Did ABC News call the manager pretending to be journalists?

McD's probably is in more hot water for not training their employees to not allow non employees to interrogate their subordinates, both clothed and unclothed, than it is for not training employees to recognize hoax phone calls.

Next they will be in trouble for not training employees to wipe their own asses. Except that lawsuit has probably come and gone already, and their training manuals surely have a section on PROPER ASS WIPING PROCEDURE for CYA purposes.

And huge thanks to the poster who gave the Wiki article on Milgram's Experiment. That was a fascinating read... the experiments also suggest that the least likely scenario for someone to play along with the authority figure is when they are talking to a voice on the phone while actually being confronted with their victim. And STILL this happened.

I'm sorry, the fault for this entire sad event lies solely with the idiot on the phone and the idiots who did what he told them to. There's just no excuse for that kind of behavior.

Seriously, though. Dave Stewart AND Donna Summer(s)?

What about the detective, Buddy Stump? Now that's a funny name.

What floors me about this whole ordeal is that the exact same stunt was pulled at a Taco Bell over a year ago and received national attention. How in the holy hell did not every restaurant put out an APB to their managers to keep an ear out for this bullshit?

Of course her name would be Donna Summers. She should have started singing "bad girls...toot-toot, yeah, beep-beep" when she made that naughty little teen undress. Or maybe she was just into "hot stuff".
Seriously, I don't know why she is getting off the hook with only a misdemeanor charge. It's largely her fault that this whole sordid incident took place. She's the one that made the girl get undressed against her will. She's the manager that wrongfully imprisoned her. And by putting her alone with her fiance, an accessory to the sodomy charge. There's got to be a chargeable offence in there somewhere.

The only one who showed a grain of sense was ... the janitor? For the folks who want to sue McD's because they didn't magically overcome unforseeable stupidity by their managers: do they get an offset because their janitor had brain cells that were able to communicate with each other?

Yes, because all good things in life come from suing large corporations, especially super large double plus ungood filthy rich American companies like McDonald's. The Karl Rove of the fast food industry.

Actually, the Karl Rove of the food industry is not McDonald's, but rather Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart, the sinkhole of evil.

OK, the "sodomy" here is the girl giving the guy a blow job, right?

Uh...come on! Someone please explain to me how this guy really thought that the police were telling him that the suspect in a crime had to give him a blow job. This would prove what exactly? And while I feel sorry for the girl, how the hell did she not draw the line at that point?

Strip search? Hey, done all the time. Jump up and down and do jumping jacks? OK, a little weird, but semi-plausible as a no-touch cavity search (and maybe she went along with it to avoid a real cavity search). Now...suck the guy's dick? Uh...what? OK, this is when she says, "OK, something is definitely wrong here. This probably isn't a cop. Regardless, this makes no sense, and I'm not doing it."

I know it says she was forced, but from what I read/saw it seemed forced as in browbeaten, not as in physically forced. If she was physically forced to perform a blow job, well, here's my advice to all you ladies out there in case you find yourself in that situation: You have teeth. Use them. And don't hold back -- make that first bite count.

Dumbest people alive.

I don't find the abuse of young women funny at all. I guess I lack the 3rd grade schoolyard humor gene. blech.

So what if you think they are dumb, karol? No one has the right to abuse people.

Abuse is 'suck my dick bitch or I kill you'. Not, 'hey, some guy on the phone says he's a cop and that you better suck me off'. Sorry, one is abuse, one is retardation.

well.

humans disappoint me every day

I feel very sorry for the young employee who was brutalized, because she's obviously quite naive and not very assertive.

But everyone else involved was so stupid as to deserve to be locked up for their low IQ alone. You hear police complain that people think police work is done "like it is on TV,' but not even on TV do you have police barking orders at people over the phone and expecting them to be followed. You'd think even someone who did nothing but watch TV would figure out that policemen tend to show up in person to catch bad guys.

The manager should not only have been fired, but jailed, sterilized, tarred, and feathered. Double for the fiance.

Well... I guess I have to cede that point, OregonMuse.

My guess on the sodomy is the guy, digitally, gave her an anal probe

Frankly, I'm apalled.
That is some sick shit to take advantage of an innocent girl like that.

Anyone know where I can get the uncensored video?

Sortelli:
I'm a business owner.
I agree with you on the stupid things businesses get sued for. This is different. This lady was the young girl's manager. The store invested her with the responsibility inherent to her job. She represents the company in any and all actions when she is on the clock. She screwed up badly, and the company is going to pay for it.

Outside of that, everyone but the janitor is an idiot.

I totally agree that the manager had a responsibility that she really fucked up in this case. It was her job to look after the girl and she failed. I fully believe she should be held responsible and she should sued herself, I just hate the idea that somehow her employers are to be held responsible for damages because they couldn't forsee someone being that fucking stupid when, presumably, they did everything else expected.

This wasn't an isolated case, apparently the scumbag on the phone was really good at what he did to trick that many people. But holding the company responsible means we're all going to start sitting through day long "What To Do When Some Cop On The Phone Asks You To Take Your Pants Off" seminars and that's just ludicrous bullshit. If we can sue companies because some of their employees are dumb, why not throw in an extra suit because the victim was dumb enough to be victimized?

Hell, and WalMart sold those phone cards, let's get them too. LET THE NANNY STATE FLOURISH.

Look, I feel sorry for the girl, too. She should not have had to to go through that.

I just really don't understand how she didn't draw the line at sucking the guy's cock. Someone said she's retarded. Well, first, that doesn't mean she deserves to be treated like this. If she were literally retarded I think I'd be even more sickened by what went on, as I am whenever I read about some jackasses taking advantage of a retarded girl (it seems every few years half a high-school football team gang bangs a retarded girl, and that always sickens me).

But from what I could tell in the video, the girl is not retarded in the literal sense. In fact, from what little I saw her she seemed to be of normal intelligence.

I just absolutely do not understand how she went along with sucking the guy off. How could she not have said, "Oh, the 'cop' is telling you that I'm supposed to suck your dick, is he? OK, that's it. I was pretty sure this was all bullshit from the start, and now I'm certain. I'm done."

People have made sarcastic comments about how maybe she should be blamed, but I could seriously see that being an issue. You'll often see court cases where they decide the damage if worth X dollar and the victim is 40% responsible for what happened, so they get 60% of X. I could see something like that in this case. Well, not really, as that's not apt to happen in a sexual abuse case. But, seriously, I just can't understand how she went along with this.

Is it proper to say that the guy "recieved sodomy"? That dosen't sound right to me. I saw something like this on 20/20 the other night, and I couldn't stop thinking how hot it would be if the victim was a little older, the female perp a little younger, and less crying. Not proud. Taking a wild guess that the stupid old lady giving out the spanking (on 20/20) was a Krout, I think I'm allowed. Anyway, I'm kind of dissapointed they didn't turn it into The John Stossel Show.

Yeah, the whole "sodomy" thing is annoying. The popular usage is "anal sex". The technical/legal usage is "anything other than penile/vaginal intercourse", which includes BJs. I wish people would either just use it for anal or drop it entirely and just specify oral or anal sex explicitly, because it can be confusing.

Sortelini, how about this:
McDonald's get sued, settles out of court for a few million $$. BUT, they recoup their losses by distributing the videotape on the blackmarket.

Really now, you know that someone, McD's execs or police, has made copies of that video tape. It's only a matter of time before we see the cute-but-very-stupid-girl do naked jumping jacks and smoke the baloney pony.

Yeah, but the rest of us will all still end up sitting through "How To Deal With A Man On The Phone Who Says He's A Cop But Suspiciously Wants You To Give A Dirty Sanchez To A Co-Worker" class, and on balance I'd rather just get my porn by supporting the hard working guys and girls in the all-American Adult Entertainment Industry.

I believe someone else mentioned it, but here is the McD's training manual excerpt again for those (including, apparently, the employees) who didn't see it:
"Under no circumstances should any member of McDonald's management or staff conduct a search of any employee or customer's person. No legitimate law enforcement agency would ever ask you to conduct such a search. If someone claiming to be a law enforcement official requests that a manager or employee conduct a strip search, or any search of another employee or customer, try to obtain the name and phone number of the caller and immediately call your local police department to report the incident. Contact your owner/operator or security manager about the incident as soon as possible. If you believe you have reason to search an employee's personal possessions (for example, a backpack, purse, etc.), contact your owner/operator or security manager for guidance beforehand. You should never detain any employee or other individual from leaving the premises against his or her will."

Is McDs still liable after this? It's been a while since the business law class in college.

{sing-songy} Thomas Simms the janitor: smart, smart, smart, smart, smart...

Don't any of you understand that those with *reasonable* intelligence levels do NOT do stupid sh8$ because they are convinced, of anything?

They do it *because* the person who "convinced" them is taking the responsibility for what they want to do all along.

The assertion that Mr. Nix (the manager who sodomized this poor girl) has a low IQ is bull! He's trying to get away with Sodomy!! by saying he was too stupid to get it. I say it again, BULL!

He got it all right, and now if the jury gets it he will be too......... in jail if there's any justice in this universe.

The problem with the cruelty of "just following orders" paradigm is the first assumption. That is to assume, (and we know what happens when you assume), that the person is "normal" or decent, or kind at heart or just like you and me.

You NEVER know who is cruel or perverted *just* because they were randomly chosen.

To wit: I can guarantee that this guy Stewart who allegedly made all the calls around the country for over 10 yrs!! sheesh that's amazing.......but he didn't get anyone to participate on each and every call.......he only got the participants who WANTED to participate in this kind of accelerating cruelty!

If you could find all the ones he called and had hung up on him, you'd find a lot of decent not necessarily incredibly intelligent people. We can all hope to God that many more people hung up on him at the get-go, but we'll never know til they come forward.

I have a retarded daughter, and I can also guarantee you that if she worked at McDonald's and had been accused of theft and told to strip and no one had said, "hey let's call your parents", she's have screamed like holy hell! She was raised to understand what is wrong and what is right, and what is decent. Not that she's UN-retarded, she is..........that will never change, but she also isn't a sitting duck for cruelty!!!!!

Maybe some of the readers here can rethink the ideas of retardation, stupidity, cruelty (planned or just opportune), and knowing when to assert yourself. This poor girl, Louise had parents who didn't prepare her for real life.........she was a victim waiting to happen, but that doesn't make her stupid.

It just means she was going to have to learn over time what her parents didn't prepare her for..........a world with cruel people, and an ever growing lack of respect for each other. If someone cand claim someone else told them to do it, then they can hide behind that.......it's time people said enough, and made those who do hateful things pay for it.

My hat's off to Judge Waller in the perpetrator's case in Kentucky. It's time for Nix to pay......and dearly.

McDonald's needs to pay too......they certainly could have forseen trouble with these kind of calls being made around the country. Nine years is plenty of time to prepare and even protect the company from potential suits by sending at minimum, a memo saying 'hey use your heads--and oh by the way, you won't be able to say you weren't warned--so don't try that when you decide to get your jolly's off by "following orders"'.

In other words----You're RESPONSIBLE. Something not enough people hear these days!

Wendy, first of all, do you know Megan?

Second, you are sending a mixed message in your lecture. First you excuse the, adult, Louise, for being naive rather than stupid. Then you go on to holding everyone responsible.

Finally, you urge personal responsiblity for our own actions.

Which is it? Or did I misunderstand your speech?

Poor Louise. But as Donna Summers once said, "she works hard for the money. So hard for it, honey"

I hate myself for finding this the least bit funny

*sigh* I laughed. I guess I'll keep you company in hell, Mr. Chaos.

{shakes head} Save me a seat on the bus ride there, Chaos and Sortelli.

Funny and...

t
i
t
i
l
a
t
i
n
g
.

I guess I'm driving the damned bus.

Gee, it isn't hard to figure out how many of you were jerking off while watching the video. Sick sick sick.

Abuse is 'suck my dick bitch or I kill you'. Not, 'hey, some guy on the phone says he's a cop and that you better suck me off'. Sorry, one is abuse, one is retardation.

No, it is a criminal offense which more lilely than not requires mandatory prison time. Sorry, you'll have to get your jollies elsewhere.

Abuse is 'suck my dick bitch or I kill you'. Not, 'hey, some guy on the phone says he's a cop and that you better suck me off'. Sorry, one is abuse, one is retardation.

No, it is a criminal offense which more lilely than not requires mandatory prison time. Sorry, you'll have to get your jollies elsewhere.

Here is the difference:

"Suck my dick, bitch, or I'll kill you", can be very believable, depending on the person delivering the line.

"You're suspected of stealing something so the cop on the phone says you have to suck my dick", is not believable. Period. This point has been raised many times in this discussion, and I have yet to see a single person even attempt to make a case that this could somehow be believable.

Up to that point, you have an ambiguous case where it could be argued that the guy really thought he was talking to a cop and doing what the cop was telling him to do, and the girl may have also thought that was the case (or at least not have been sure). But once the cop orders a blowjob, the whole thing should have fell apart. The fact that the guy conveyed the order to the girl boggles my mind, but the fact that she did it mystifies me even more.

Obviously the guy should be prosecuted and serve some jail time, but that doesn't resolve the question about why a girl of seemingly normal intelligence went along with sucking him off as part of an alleged police investigation.

Here's what the psych. said. She was confused and humuliated from what she was asked to do from the beginning and even more confused by the manager coming in and out and acting as if nothing was wrong and not helping her when she asked. At this point she felt entirely helpless. This went on for quite a long period of time. As a result, she went into a dissociative state.

However, it does not resolve the question as to why you and others are either getting your rocks off sexually on this young girl's humuliation and abuse or just gloating over it in general.

I have yet to see a single person even attempt to make a case that this could somehow be believable.

I think that was the point of the reference to Stanley Milgram's experiment. The idea that you had to electrocute someone in the name of an experiment on learning would be pretty hard to believe too. But people did it.

The report was unclear on what the actual "sodomy" was. Googled a bit and it was definitely a BJ. Nix tried to cop an Alford plea to unlawful imprisonment (felony) and sexual misconduct (misdemeanor). Article here. Quoth the judge, "Blow me." Trial is set for December 13, the same day the caller will be tried.

And of course there is a lawsuit based on a failure to warn, failure to supervise and the usual hogwash. It's the American way. Doesn't look like it has settled.

The BJ wasn't a matter of the kid being taken in by the caller since it followed after a prolonged period of being imprisoned naked and spanked whenever the kid refused to go along with something. From another article, "she said Nix told her he would hit her if she didn't sodomize him, so she did." I have a little more sympathy for her although nobody is exactly covered in glory. And the guy who called bullshit? A ninth grade dropout.

Here's what the psych. said. She was confused and humuliated from what she was asked to do from the beginning and even more confused by the manager coming in and out and acting as if nothing was wrong and not helping her when she asked. At this point she felt entirely helpless. This went on for quite a long period of time. As a result, she went into a dissociative state.

I said I didn't understand her going along with it. I didn't say that there was no explanation, just that I hadn't heard it. If she felt trapped and completely helpless and was just doing what she was told hoping it would end, then that is a reasonable explanation. Thank you for providing it. That makes much more sense than her going along with it as part of a supposed police investigation. The story and news report did not make this clear and in fact to me made it sound like while she wasn't sure if this was a real cop or not she was going along with everything in case it was.

Then we have this:

However, it does not resolve the question as to why you and others are either getting your rocks off sexually on this young girl's humuliation and abuse or just gloating over it in general.

Where did I get my rocks off or gloat? The answer is "nowhere". Feel free to look at my messages above for any evidence to the contrary; you will find none. Please more a little more careful about your accusations.

For the record, while I wondered why the hell the girl went along with this, the whole thing made me sick. I am not sure it was such a great idea to show the video of it, as the story could have been told in words. When they're showing shots of her topless covering herself with her arms, I don't really see how that advances understanding of the story. It just more seems there to titillate.

And, yes, I think the people saying this was "hot", etc., are being pretty sick. Even if they think that you'd think it would be the kind of thing you'd keep to yourself.

it occurs to me that the girl might actually have committed some wrongdoing, and thought this was the only way she was going to get out of it.

I think I've made it clear that I find this disgusting, and sickening, but in case anybody missed that, I do.

and I'm not blaming the kid at all - I'm just trying to understand why

it occurs to me that the girl might actually have committed some wrongdoing

Can you elaborate, please?

VRWC, to me the Milgram experiment is kind of apples and oranges. That experiment involved a single allowed punishment that was restricted to a safe range and then seeing if people could be pushed to go past that range by an authority. The results are surprising and disappointing but limited. Maybe the people figured since the victims didn't look close to death that a little more current was OK, and they kept doing that until they got well into the supposedly unsafe range. Anyway, what they were doing was a very simple task of zapping with increasing current. I suspect if they were handed a gun and told to shoot and kill one of the testees, that nobody would have gone alone with that.

And that's kind of how I see this. I could see with the proper idiot taking the call an interrogation escalating to a strip search then escalating to having her jump up and down to shake out any stolen goods. Being told to spank the girl should have jarred Nix out of the belief that this was a cop though. But, hell, even with that I guess punishing an uncooperative witness isn't completely off the track they were on (although being asked to spank their bare ass is not believable). But a blow job?

I really wonder what was going through Nix's head. I find it hard to believe that he thought he was talking to a cop all the way through receiving the BJ. At some point he must have realized this was bullshit but was enjoying it too much to stop.

Nix tried to cop an Alford plea to unlawful imprisonment (felony) and sexual misconduct (misdemeanor). Quoth the judge, "Blow me." Trial is set for December 13, the same day the caller will be tried.

Cool. I can't believe that everyone involved initially accepted a plea bargain where he'd only get a year of probation in exchange for apologizing.

And of course there is a lawsuit based on a failure to warn, failure to supervise and the usual hogwash. It's the American way. Doesn't look like it has settled.

Normally I'm not a fan of hitting the corporations, and I don't think McDonald's was really at fault, but it sure seems someone should have to help this poor girl with medical costs, counseling, etc.

"she said Nix told her he would hit her if she didn't sodomize him, so she did."

Well, that's a different story then. She still should have bit it right off. And ABC News did her a real disservice by not mentioning this.

And the guy who called bullshit? A ninth grade dropout.

This has all the hallmarks of the classic tale of an uneducated person being the only one to be able to solve some difficult problem...except that you'd expect any idiot to be able to figure this out within five minutes.

The various articles talked about this guy instigating strip searches all over the country, but these yahoos seem to be the only ones that were talking into requiring the alleged thief to perform a blow job. Then we have this:

Bullitt County Commonwealth's Attorney Mike Mann said in an interview yesterday that he agreed to probation for Nix because he has no prior record and because it would have difficult to persuade all 12 members of a jury to reject Nix's defense -- that he was duped by someone he thought was a law-enforcement officer.

"It would have been hard not to have one juror say, 'I might have gotten that call and done the same thing,' " Mann said.

Really? They couldn't find a jury of 12 in Bullitt county to convict because they'd feel that they also might get talked into believing a cop on the phone wanted a robbery suspect to give them a blow job? What kind of morons live in Bullitt County?

VRWC, I think Dave is just speculating that the girl might have done some wrong and thought that by going along with this she'd get out of it. I don't think he's saying she did anything wrong while being interrogated or that he specifically knows of something she did.

Fast food places are kind of bizarre in this regard. I've worked at a few and had friends who did the same, and at pretty much every one there was at least one "big crime" that was investigated. I think it's common for a few bucks to get swiped out of the register or some minor items to go missing (most of the workers are teenagers after all), so I think the managers get used to playing cop/sleuth, and sometimes it goes to their head.

I worked at one where a stainless steel mixing bucket was missing and you would have thought that it had been made out of solid gold with the weeks-long investigation they conducted. I was individually interrogated (along with everyone else that worked that day) by the manager at great length. At one point she went from calmly talking to me to looking me straight in the eye and loudly demanding, "DID YOU STEAL THE BUCKET?!" Obviously she thought that if she caught me off guard and I had stolen the bucket that I would have somehow given it away at that point. Instead, it was so surprising that I burst out laughing and laughed and laughed until tears were coming out of my eyes. When I regained my composure I told her that was a nice try, but, no, I didn't steal the bucket. During the course of this investigation her boss told her to look for someone that owned an aquarium, because that's probably what the bucket was stolen for. This suggestion was treated very seriously. As it turned out, nobody on that shift had an aquarium, but if someone had they would instantly have been the number one suspect.

I just wanted to say, "Look, it's a fucking bucket, for God's sake, and there's a 50% chance it got thrown out with some garbage accidentally and nobody knows where it is, so just drop it already. But that would probably have made me the top suspect, so I just ignored it until they finally gave up and dropped the matter.

So in this particular case, I think the pump was likely already primed by past incidents (trying to tie my rambling bucket story back to some point, with probably little success).

That last comment was me. (It cleared my name when it initially rejected the comment because it didn't like the last four letters of the word "t.r.a.s.h" followed by the word "a". I had to changed "t.r.a.s.h" to "garbage" and I forgot to put my name back in.)

Craiggers, as I recall the experiment, Milgram was trying to find out where Nazis came from. He found an alarming proportion of people are willing to transfer moral decision making to people they perceive as authority figures. I think the findings are more broadly applicable that you are allowing, but they aren't dispositive and I guess a person can honestly read them narrowly.

Nix has a weaker case than his former fiance since the supposed corporate officer "on the other line" would hardly have been much of an authority figure, he came into a ridiculously advanced scenario cold (this sort of thing would seem to require boiling the frog one degree at a time), and he went much much further with it. On the other hand, this business had also played out along similar lines scores of times before.

Yeah, I know. A blow job is hard to figure. I'd guess he was having enough sick fun that he just didn't see much of an incentive in questioning the "cop's" authority. Still a transfer of decision making, but it sounds a lot more culpable. You never know until you see the evidence, though.

McD's is probably liable for some serious change. I don't like it since the company really wasn't at fault, but that's the way things work. And it will probably be an insurance company that shells out. Should the kid be getting money? I guess so, but I'm thinking the payday is going to greatly exceed her actual costs and blameless suffering.

You may want to google around a little on the question of this being the only case that went so far. Example here. Figure Nix's defense will try to trot out as many of these instances as it can. Who knows what a jury will make of that?

On the girl doing something wrong, she was flatly accused of stealing a customer's purse earlier that day. Hard to see what actual offense she would be trying to get out of.

VWRC,

I will first reiterate my absolute disgust at the people that took advantage of this kid.

I'm just trying to figure out why she felt so helpless. Maybe it was, as has been suggested, she couldn't handle what she perceived to be authority figures telling her what to do and therefore she did it. I don't know.

It just throws me for a loop that a kid would put up with this monstrous assault. I wondered if she was struggling with having done something wrong (a fiver from the till) that would make her feel as if she was so powerless that she had to endure this.

Frankly that would make it even more disgusting and horrid to me.

I have teen daughters, if that helps you at all understand just how much I despise the people that did this to this little girl.

or maybe I'm missing your point, perhaps it was merely the threat of having done something wrong, and not being able to prove innocence - I think that's your point, that made her endure it.

monsters. dammit.

Dave, you pretty much have it. I'd guess this was something that happened by slow escalation so each inch of ground she gave before felt like a reason to give the next inch. Just one of those nasty parts of huiman nature. She was accused of something she thought was terrible and was willing to go to great lengths to prove she was innocent. I can see how an innocent kid could end up consenting to a strip search to make that go away. The crucial moment sounds like the point where her clothes were locked away. Psychologically, that would be pretty powerful. And even then, she had to be assaulted a few times and threatened with more before she went the final distance.

Not just her clothes, I notice the first thing they grabbed were her keys and cell phone, too. Throw in the threat of beatings and I can understand a little better how the girl got caught up in this. I hope Nix gets as much jail time as the fucker on the phone.

I don't find the abuse of young women funny at all. I guess I lack the 3rd grade schoolyard humor gene. blech.

Somehow I think if it were bus-driver bart's (and others') daughter or sister they wouldn't find it so "titillating."

Some of you guys are just fucking scary, which probably explains why you are holed up in front of a computer. I thank God for it, too.

Fuck you, bart and those of you getting off on this. Fucking sick assholes. Maybe someone will get off on you being sodomized some day.

I first learned of this the other night on the Primetime broadcast. The most incredible aspect of this story to me is that this was not an isolated incident.

Good for you, colon, but I'm still not sharing any of my I'M OUTRAGED cookies with you, you cowardly anonymous fuck.

I agree with a lot of what VRWC and Dave have said about why the girl got caught up in all of this. In addition to the threats of violence, the removal of her clothing, car keys and cell phone, and the general powerlessness that a teenager working a minimum-wage job feels, let's not forget that she was probably scared shitless of losing that job. As the story says, her mom had just lost her job, and money was a major issue--the girl was picking up extra shifts left and right to help out.

So, now are they going to have to put a sign next to the "wash your hands" sign that's a picture of someone raping a minor in one of those red circles with the slashy line through it? Man I'm glad someone used the word 'tittilating' and diverted attention from my hypothetical 'hot'. Anyone ever notice that if someone tells you some girl scouts had a pillow fight, you don't picture real girl scouts, you picture a couple of women in their early twenties in girl scout uniforms. Then, if they show you a video of a couple of actual girl scouts, that ruins it. Damn, I used to be so coherent.

I can't blame the girl in the slightest - once she realized what a f*cked-up situation she was in, she was literally trapped; how many of us would want to go running through a restaurant with no clothes or anything else? (If they'd left her her keys, she might at least have been able to make it to her car, if she had one). Also, while she might have suspected it wasn't a real cop, she might have thought that it was a setup between her manager, her manager's fiance, and the guy on the phone. I mean, the fiance did get a BJ out of it. I would have been inclined to think he at least was in on it from the beginning. If you think that everyone involved is actually playing a sick game with you, trying to reason with them is pretty pointless.

I can't see where McD's is responsible except that they hired a criminally stupid manager. If the girl needs money (and hell, she should be compensated) she should bankrupt her former manager and said manager's former fiance. Too bad their money has probably all gone to lawyers.

Damn, I used to be so coherent.

Please pardon the bloviations, but I'm guessing a few good people might be reassessing with some awkwardness.

This case is like a lot of other cases. You can have one really good opinion on the face of it and then a few more facts come in and the opinion goes 180. And 180 again with a few more facts. So what?

Individual cases are different from policy stuff. You can figure out good policy with a broad brush. For specific cases, you can't know until all the facts are in. And you probably won't really know even then. It's sort of a Maltese Falcon thing. If you are a cop, a judge, a lawyer or (I guess) a PI, that's just the existential lay of the land. Hell, it's the lay of the land even if you are trying to figure out whether your clerk is pilfering from the register.

I don't think we can call foul on anyone who went for the joke or the easy babysitter fantasy the way the story was reported. Given a choice between people being stupid and people being brilliantly evil, stupid is usually the safe bet. I also don't think anyone would go there again given the way the story developed.

Old News: Evil people are inventive about exploiting human frailty and innocents can be hurt in ways normal people would never imagine. As a people, we have managed to come up with two responses to those moments where we are surprised by how evil goes about its work. One is to retreat from ever making judgments again for fear of being wrong. We know those guys pretty well. The other is just to correct the mistake and carry on.

Carry on.

[/bloviation]

I don't think she should be able to sue McDonald's for this, but she probably deserves an extended leave with worker's comp.

The girl is an obvious show off a la paris hilton, sashaying with the dog. It was all a set up to sue mc donalds and get attention. She will be going to jail.

how many of us would want to go running through a restaurant with no clothes or anything else?

vs. performing oral sex on a stranger? Cover the floor with broken glass and I am still running.

Oh... my... goodness...

There's no way I'm allowing this kind of treatment. Parents need to teach their kids what's permissible and what's not.

Insane.

Okay, I wasn't going to check out the story until colon got all up on his hind legs about it. All I can say is, damn. It's hard to have sympathy for that much stupid.

But wasn't anybody else just the teeeensiest spooked by this?

The detectives caught a break when they discovered the calling card used in the Kentucky incident was purchased at a different Wal-Mart than the one in the Massachusetts case. This time, the camer*s in the store were trained on the cash registers. "We can see the card go across the scanner — we see everything," said Flaherty. "But now we see an individual. We don't know who that is." When detectives go back to the first surveillance tape to try and match up the face, they find the same man and notice something else — he's wearing a uniform.

But wasn't anybody else just the teeeensiest spooked by this?

Uh, no? The accused worked in the prison system, IIRC. What am I missing?

And I don't agree the kid was stupid. She was innocent enough to put herself in a position to be coerced by someone she trusted. And then she got coerced. I'm content to put the heat on the adults.

I think Weasel was referring to the video camera "seeing everything" about the perp.

Frankly, given all the trouble and luck involved in that "seeing everything" I'm not worried about it.

The girl deserves my pity. Louise is 18 years old, by the way. She's not a kid.

I don't believe we are getting all the facts in the case. All the actors invloved are stupid and/or cruel.

But the strange part is when Donna leaves her boyfriend, Wes, alone in the room with Louise. They did all kinds of weird shit at the order of the caller. Were they really alone all that time? Was Donna unaware of the actions taking place? I doubt it. Something stinks in Denmark, besides the Danish.

THEN the janitor was called into the room with the naked employee. The janitor refused to cooperate with the caller. By Donna's account, it was at that point in time she realized it was a hoax.

Huh? Why would the janitor exercising common sense suddenly cause Donna to come to her senses?

The naked calestenics with her boyfriend is no cause for alarm? The mouth-woopie with her boyfriend at the behest of a "police officer" wasn't a reason for pause?

The important thing is that the caller was arrested. And Louise seems okay with it all. She looked happy while walking her pooch in the park. Louise may even like all the attention it has given her.

I have to wonder exactly where Louise would have drawn the line. Vaginal penetration? Anal penetration?

Really. Who on earth raised this young lady to trust authority figures so much that she would blow some guy when ordered to do so?

We also have to consider that maybe Louise is okay with pre-marital sex with strangers. Mybe she is the "town pump" and bj's are old hat to her.

We can't believe everything is the way it is presented on the ABC report just because it is packaged or designed to make Louise very innocent and the other actors very sinister.

Worried? Stores filming register transactions strikes me as common sense. Am I supposed to be scared of bad hair days or something?

Bart, 18 is not an adult, the law be damned. She resisted several times along the way and, having already been grossly humiliated and psychologically stripped of any power, took physical abuse for the resistance. The whole abusive episode went on for hours.

Presuming that deep down she might have been cool with it is just a bit over the line.

This is what happens when psych majors have too much free time available. Before I say the following, understand that had she been kin or a friend of mine, none of the ones up on charges would make it to trial.

A more accurate version of the "horndog" comments by prior posters would be, "Wow. She's a hottie. The thought of a consentual version of these events makes me feel a little funny in the pants." Heck, BDSM is usually a MAJOR turn-off for me, and my thoughts ran along those lines.

A bit OT, but I know Wal*Mart has been working very hard to upgrade their security camera systems - too many incidents in the past few years where a grainy image on a video tape that's been in the machine since the store was opened just wasn't clear enough to use.

(God, you would not believe the shit that happens at Wal*Marts); anyway, I hope the DVR upgrades pay off in court.

Worried? Stores filming register transactions strikes me as common sense. Am I supposed to be scared of bad hair days or something?

It is estimated that anyone traveling from the outskirts of London to the city center has been photographed a minimum of 300 times. While, for example, this helped identify the subway London bombers quickly, it did nothing to stop them. Or slow down a generally rising violent crime rate. There's a distinct limit to the amount of surveillance I'm willing to endure and "here's a picture of you buying a Plumagranite Snapple in Charlotte North Carolina on August 15" exceeds my comfy zone. It's getting exceedingly close to the future where everybody wears gray nehru jackets, shaves their heads and lives in cast cement apartments that the scifi books warned us about.

Weasel, Walmart isn't the gummint and watching the till is a no-brainer. So far, nobody really cares why I keep buying all those fresh chickens and KY jelly at the Walmart so it's hard to imagine your Snapple purchase would be of interest. Are you this concerned about telephone and credit card records?

Different strokes, I guess.

There are, on average, 230 camera in a Wal*Mart supercenter. Most are there to deter crime and watch the customer and clerk interact at the register.

But you'll recall there were a couple of kidnappings in the parking lots, one in a store in Texas and one somewhere up in the northeast, and although they had camera in the right place to catch something, the tapes were useless - they'd been overused.

There was that asshole mom smacking her kid outside a Kohls, in this case usable video.

Its getting to the point where if a company doesn't use this stuff, they're leaving a door open for negligence suits.

I think it's been debated on AoS before, back when the London bombings took place - I'm generally ok with camera in public areas where I am doing things you do in public. It is a fine line that deserves some scrutiny.

for some weird reason I could not use the plural for camera.

Are you this concerned about telephone and credit card records?

Getting there. So far, the databases aren't talking to each other all that well, but do you really doubt that the information will be abused when it's available? Especially if there's money to be made. Or kept.

Training a camera on a till only makes sense, to deal with problems that happen in the short term, like a robbery or shortchanging. How much time passed between this guy buying a calling card and having his picture snapped, and the police fishing it out again? How long should this stuff hang around? And don't get me started on the tyranny of the traffic cam in the UK.

I started several years ago paying for things like liquor with cash. I don't doubt for a second that my insurance company would find that interesting if I ever came down with an expensive case of boozitis. They can't get at it now. I won't trust that they can't get at it in the future.

Award me the Reynold's Wrap chapeau if thou must, but check out the home page of CASPIAN from time to time.

Did anyone else notice the fact that the hoaxer had the Managers pick out their victim, by suggestion of their looks.
The victim is normally perceived as being the 'cute' or 'the good looking one' by the Manager themselves, after being given a vague description!

In the case of the opposite sexes initiating the strip searches this was probably fueled by the desire to see the person they were attracted to naked.

Especially when they felt someone else (e.g the "police officer") justified it by ordering it, and would also be the one taking blame.

um, can we see the real video already?

We are reaping the fruits of public education that has run off the rails...AND IN KENTUCKY!! HAVE YOU PEOPLE NO IDEA OF WHAT LIFE IS LIKE IN KENTUCKY???

Did Donna Summers actually think leaving a naked 18 year old girl with her fiance was alright and nothing would happen? And why the hell is this fiance at the job anyways. He does not even work at Mcdonalds? I hate it when bosses treat their boyfriends like employees and let them in the workplace. Donna Summers is the most guilty in this case for letting this start and the ABC news does not point that out. Her story has too many holes in it. If she thought a real police officer was on the phone, why would she leave the office to take care of a fast food restaurant? Why wouldn't she wait till she was finished instead of leaving a naked 18 year old girl with her fiance? Donna Summers did not like Louise and Summers knew what she was doing the whole time. Now Summers is playing stupid, but we all know she is guilty and belongs in jail.