So this guy's got to waste tax payer's dollars and resources that can be used to catch real criminals on this! I say the woman's bail should be repaid amoung other things... Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Actually, I think there's a point there. They messed up the food and served it anyway? That's really gross.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
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They definitely shouldn't have served it and should bear consequences for that, but it seems more like something to tip the food and safety inspection people off about, rather than arresting the girl who served it, doesn't it?
Posts: 2762 | Registered: Sep 1999
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That's true. It's a little bit overboard with the reaction. I was mostly reacting against Syn's post that it was a waste for this to be handled at all - it clearly isn't. The restaurant serves food that has been severely compromised. That's really disgusting, and definitely something should happen.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
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If the employee told her supervisor, who then tried to "thumb" the salt off, how is it the employee's fault at all? Shouldn't the supervisor get in trouble for approving the sale of over salted meat? And shouldn't that trouble consist of no more than an official complaint to corporate headquarters and a call to the food and health inspector? Me thinks so.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: It's called investigating.
Please. It's called harassment.
How is it harassment to send food to a crime lab?
quote:If the employee told her supervisor, who then tried to "thumb" the salt off, how is it the employee's fault at all? Shouldn't the supervisor get in trouble for approving the sale of over salted meat? And shouldn't that trouble consist of no more than an official complaint to corporate headquarters and a call to the food and health inspector? Me thinks so.
You're assuming that the story told to the police is accurate.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Yes, the food should not have been distributed as was.
Yes, the food chain supervisor and employees should be reprimanded for their lax procedures.
But to arrest the person who served the food and to send the offending food to a crime lab!?
I don't see it as harassment, but what result from the investigation is expected? That it was too salty? The crime analysis seems to be excessive and wasteful and well over the top for such an incident.
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
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P.S. McDonalds burgers are likely to make you sick, anyway. Most fast food makes me sick. A lot of people would get arrested.
I wholeheartedly agree that this is stupid. Send it back, get a refund, call the health inspector. No need to call in the fuzz, yo.
I would also like to know just how sick this man considers to be "sick." Feeling sick is different than being poisoned, or having a dangerous reaction. Sick can be a tummy ache. Sick can also be your eyeballs melting.
Posts: 3936 | Registered: Jul 2000
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The last time I went to McDonald's, the food made me sick. I didn't know I could have the people who served it to me arrested! I rather thought the answer was never to go to McDonald's again (which really, I knew before I got the revolting sandwich).
This whole thing is harassment. It's a gross abuse of power that is part of the reason that cops get such a bad rep. This is not a criminal offense; it's a civil matter. If he wants to sue McDonald's for oversalting his burger, I'd have the greatest sympathy for him. Although, IMHO, even that would have been overreacting.
The only actual reasonable response to a situation like this is to speak to the manager and demand a refund or a new burger.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:I say the woman's bail should be repaid amoung other things...
It will be, either when the charges are dropped or she has made all required appearances.
Not necessarily entirely true. In Cook County, at least, they keep a portion of your bail (10%) even if charges are dropped.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Not necessarily entirely true. In Cook County, at least, they keep a portion of your bail (%10) even if charges are dropped.
Are you sure? Most bail bondsman charge 10%, which is not refunded, but using a bail bondsman is not required. Illinois allows defendants to make a deposit of 10% of the bail with the court, in which case 10 % of the amount deposited is retained after the criminal proceedings are complete. This means that only 1% of the total bail amount is retained, not 10%.
To avoid having anything retained, the defendant can deposit the entire bail amount.
quote:But to arrest the person who served the food and to send the offending food to a crime lab!?
I don't see it as harassment, but what result from the investigation is expected? That it was too salty? The crime analysis seems to be excessive and wasteful and well over the top for such an incident.
Or that there was something else wrong with it. Everyone keeps saying that this is merely a case of "over-salting" a burger. You don't know that yet. And until it's investigated further, you won't know that.
Note I haven't commented on the propriety of the arrest, merely the investigation.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I'm also assuming that the people in the story actually exist and that Union City, GA is a real place. We're going off what the article tells us, so we have to at least start with the assumption that the article is correct.
It states that the officer went to the counter and "told the manager [his burger] made him sick." Then "Bull admitted spilling salt on the meat." Then "Adams took her outside and questioned her." She was then arrested "because she served the burger "without regards to the well-being of anyone who might consume it.""
Nowhere does it mention that there is even a possibility of poison or that it is anything more than "merely a case of "over-salting" a burger." That is what it's a case of. That's what the article is about.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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If you ate something that made you sick (we do not, at this point, know what that means, so let's assume some stomach violence at the minimum) and the server's response was "oh, I oversalted it," would you be inclined to believe them?
I might, if I knew I had a medical condition that could be aggravated by excess sodium intake. Otherwise, I'd be pretty suspicious of that response, especially since I've worked at a McDonald's and they do not, under ordinary circumstances, add salt to their burgers during the cooking process.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Not necessarily entirely true. In Cook County, at least, they keep a portion of your bail (%10) even if charges are dropped.
Are you sure? Most bail bondsman charge 10%, which is not refunded, but using a bail bondsman is not required. Illinois allows defendants to make a deposit of 10% of the bail with the court, in which case 10 % of the amount deposited is retained after the criminal proceedings are complete. This means that only 1% of the total bail amount is retained, not 10%.
To avoid having anything retained, the defendant can deposit the entire bail amount.
Hmmm...I may be getting "bail" and "the money that had to be put up before I could get out of jail". I didn't use a bail bondsmen and (eventually) got a check for 90% of what had been deposited. Fortunately, it wasn't a significant amount of money.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Hmmm...I may be getting "bail" and "the money that had to be put up before I could get out of jail". I didn't use a bail bondsmen and (eventually) got a check for 90% of what had been deposited. Fortunately, it wasn't a significant amount of money.
Of course I'm now dying to know the story behind this.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:I'm also assuming that the people in the story actually exist and that Union City, GA is a real place. We're going off what the article tells us, so we have to at least start with the assumption that the article is correct.
It states that the officer went to the counter and "told the manager [his burger] made him sick." Then "Bull admitted spilling salt on the meat." Then "Adams took her outside and questioned her." She was then arrested "because she served the burger "without regards to the well-being of anyone who might consume it.""
Right. The article doesn't say that the only thing wrong with the meat was that it was over-salted. It says that the employee claimed that over-salting was what was wrong with the meat.
quote:Nowhere does it mention that there is even a possibility of poison or that it is anything more than "merely a case of "over-salting" a burger." That is what it's a case of. That's what the article is about.
Nowhere does the article claim that the only thing wrong with the meat is that it was over-salted. The article does say that an officer says he was made sick by the burger. It also says that the officer received one possible story as to why this was the case. Finally, it reports the arrest and the sending of the burger for testing to determine if there is anything else wrong with the meat.
I get why people are annoyed by the arrest. Why are they annoyed by sending a burger that made an officer sick for testing?
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Well, Fox News (who has a better headline, IMO) has a slightly different story. The salt was spilled when Bull was mixing the meat, the manager continued making patties and all of this is available on security cameras, according to Bull. In that case, where she is offering fairly irrefutable evidence, I'm inclined to trust her.
Also, "according to MyFoxAtlanta, the police accused Bull of purposely pouring the salt and pepper on the burger and charged her with reckless conduct." Assuming that's true, it sounds like the officer does not suspect anything further than over-salting the burger.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Hmmm...I may be getting "bail" and "the money that had to be put up before I could get out of jail". I didn't use a bail bondsmen and (eventually) got a check for 90% of what had been deposited. Fortunately, it wasn't a significant amount of money.
This probably isn't explained well at the jail - unless Cooke has a unique requirement that isn't covered by the code section, then you had the option to pay 10x what you paid and receive it all back.
In these cases, the city is serving as a bail bondsman for defendants and charging them about 1/10 of what private bail bondsman would.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Well, Fox News (who has a better headline, IMO) has a slightly different story. The salt was spilled when Bull was mixing the meat, the manager continued making patties and all of this is available on security cameras, according to Bull. In that case, where she is offering fairly irrefutable evidence, I'm inclined to trust her.
Which has nothing to do with whether or not the burger should be tested. Moreover, the story doesn't say if she told the police about the camera.
Moreover, if the salt did make the officer sick, and the burger-maker knew about the salt, then it's not a huge leap at this point to charge recklessness.
It will depend on the amount of salt, how likely that much salt is to make someone sick, and how likely it is for a food worker to know it. All things to be determined at trial.
quote:Also, "according to MyFoxAtlanta, the police accused Bull of purposely pouring the salt and pepper on the burger and charged her with reckless conduct." Assuming that's true, it sounds like the officer does not suspect anything further than over-salting the burger.
Even so, I still don't understand what the problem with the crime lab submission is.
BTW, since when do they make patties inside individual McDonalds?
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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That makes sense. It wasn't very well explained. Very little was "well explained". It wasn't a big deal ($10) for me - and I had made the choice to deal with possible consequences before I got arrested. It does bother me, though, that people who are frivolously or wrongly arrested have to pay anything for the privilege.
edit to add: it isn't a particularly interesting story, Noemon. Civil disobedience effort to get people to realize that the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea. Sigh. Don't you wish they had paid attention?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: [QUOTE]I get why people are annoyed by the arrest. Why are they annoyed by sending a burger that made an officer sick for testing?
Actually, this is the only thing I can honestly say I did not have a problem with in the story -- sending the burger off for tests. The article was pretty poorly written if the cop honestly suspect poison since it did not suggest this as a possibility nor did they go into detail about what "making him sick" means.
re: bail...I know from experience that there are some dishonest cops that will make you *think* you have to use a bail bondsman and end up paying 10%. I ended up in a pretty weird situation where I had to bail my husband (fiance at the time) out of jail and I had the thousand dollars they wanted sitting in the bank but the cops did some fast-talking and made me think I had to use a bail bondsman. They told me I wouldn't get any of my money back if I didn't. Hopefully, this will never come up again, but I know better next time.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:That makes sense. It wasn't very well explained. Very little was "well explained". It wasn't a big deal ($10) for me - and I had made the choice to deal with possible consequences before I got arrested. It does bother me, though, that people who are frivolously or wrongly arrested have to pay anything for the privilege.
Yeah, better explanations would be nice. It should be noted that the Illinois system is a MAJOR improvement from a defendant's perspective over the old system that had only private bail bondsmen. That system required coming up with the full bail amount or losing 10% of the bail. Even if there is room for improvement (which it sounds like there is), it represents real progress and has cut the permanent costs for those who don't want to or can't put up the whole amount by 9/10.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:BTW, since when do they make patties inside individual McDonalds?
They don't. The patties are prefabricated and shipped frozen; the cooking process is simply putting the patties on the frying surface, no seasoning added.
This is a weird McDonald's, if they're claiming they have video footage of the meat mixing going on.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:BTW, since when do they make patties inside individual McDonalds?
They don't. The patties are prefabricated and shipped frozen; the cooking process is simply putting the patties on the frying surface, no seasoning added.
So it sounds like something strange was going on here, based on this part of the Fox report:
quote:Kendra Bull was mixing hamburger meat when, she said, too much salt and pepper accidentally spilled into the bowl. Bull said her manager was working with her, and continued to make patties out of the meat.
posted
Sending it to a crime lab and arresting her seem silly. If there was a problem, the customer should have returned the burger, complained, and then called the local HHS people in to inspect the place. If someone at my restaurant got arrested everytime someone had a problem with the food, we'd be out of business from a lack of employees. Mistakes happen. Without knowing precisely how much salt was spilled into the meat mix, it's hard to say whether it was wrong or not, admittedly, but criminal? That seems excessive. What's the crime? Attempted First Degree Natricide?
And for using their hands to brush off the salt, assuming they were wearing gloves, I don't see the problem. If they weren't wearing gloves, then that'd be another big health department violation. There's a system set up to handle these kinds of things, and it generally isn't done through the police department, at least not initially to my knowledge.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:So it sounds like something strange was going on here, based on this part of the Fox report:
Yeah, very, very strange. The patties almost have to be prefabricated in order to assure McDonald's high level of consistency, not to mention getting the patties to the exact 1/4 and 1/10 lb sizes.
I won't say that what they're claiming is impossible, but it would be the first I've heard of it...ever.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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My wife was a manager at McD's for a while (don't worry, she got out with her soul intact), I'm checking to see if they ever make patties on site.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: it isn't a particularly interesting story, Noemon. Civil disobedience effort to get people to realize that the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea. Sigh. Don't you wish they had paid attention?
quote: If someone at my restaurant got arrested everytime someone had a problem with the food, we'd be out of business from a lack of employees.
This isn't an "every time someone had a problem with the food" case, but a "someone got sick from the food" case. If the sickness is traced to intentional use of food that is known to have a problem, we're well into criminal possibilities here.
quote:And for using their hands to brush off the salt, assuming they were wearing gloves, I don't see the problem. If they weren't wearing gloves, then that'd be another big health department violation. There's a system set up to handle these kinds of things, and it generally isn't done through the police department, at least not initially to my knowledge.
Police departments have handled numerous cases alleging tampering by employees with fast food.
quote:Yeah, very, very strange. The patties almost have to be prefabricated in order to assure McDonald's high level of consistency, not to mention getting the patties to the exact 1/4 and 1/10 lb sizes.
I won't say that what they're claiming is impossible, but it would be the first I've heard of it...ever.
One possibility is use of cheaper, expired meat with over-salting to hide spoilage. It's not unheard of. Assuming McD's doesn't allow making patties, maybe they'll investigate.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:One possibility is use of cheaper, expired meat with over-salting to hide spoilage. It's not unheard of. Assuming McD's doesn't allow making patties, maybe they'll investigate.
I hope so. The six or seven McDonald's prep areas I've seen haven't even had the equipment necessary to make patties - not even a mixing container.
I'm going to stop speculating, because the mental images I'm getting are horrifying, and I love McDonald's food too much to stop eating it.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Making the patties on site definitely not standard procedure at McD's. They would put grill seasoning on them though.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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The first article could have been interpreted as either making patties or simply seasoning premade patties ("a burger made with the oversalted meat"), but it's the second article's use of "mixing" that seems conclusive. Assuming, of course, that word was used by the worker and not a result of the reporter jumping to the wrong conclusion from "made with the oversalted meat."
Luckily it's all on security camera. Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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When I worked at McDonalds, back in the stone ages, we sprinkled a mixture of salt and pepper on the patties on the grill. I'm pretty sure they do the same at the McDonalds restaurants here still.
As for arresting the employee, that's rather premature. One of my responsibilities at work is to investigate food complaints. People are notoriously bad at determining what food made them ill. They usually blame the last thing that they ate, or fish, if they ate fish. They are almost ALWAYS wrong.
Before I would even investigate the restaurant, I'd have to know a lot more about the complaintant's symptoms, incubation period, etc.
If an investigation shows that there was deliberate tampering with the food, then an arrest would be appropriate, but I have to agree that this officer was way out of line here.
Of course, that's assuming that the full story is in the article, which of course it isn't.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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I'm confused. When I read the article, all it said was that she accidentally spilled salt on the meat. I was envisioning a bunch of frozen patties in a box by the fryer and a salt shaker (for the fries, maybe?) getting tipped over into the box. There's no way anyone at McDonald's MAKES hamburger patties. Where does it say that they were doing this?
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Kendra Bull was mixing hamburger meat when, she said, too much salt and pepper accidentally spilled into the bowl. Bull said her manager was working with her, and continued to make patties out of the meat.
quote:Originally posted by Christine: I'm confused. When I read the article, all it said was that she accidentally spilled salt on the meat. I was envisioning a bunch of frozen patties in a box by the fryer and a salt shaker (for the fries, maybe?) getting tipped over into the box. There's no way anyone at McDonald's MAKES hamburger patties. Where does it say that they were doing this?
Hmmm...that's weird. I really didn't think McDonald's (or any other fast food restaurant) prepared burgers in the store. My own experience was with a Burger King, but I gotta say that I'm not sure some of my coworkers were capable of making hamburgers if they had to do anything more complicated than take them out of a box and put them on the broiler.
There's one other thing that just doesn't seem right, though....from the second article:
quote:A police officer purchased one of the salty burgers and became sick. According to MyFoxAtlanta, the police accused Bull of purposely pouring the salt and pepper on the burger and charged her with reckless conduct. The police photographed the burger, took the sick cop to the hospital, and carted Bull off to jail.
He went to the hospital because of too much salt? If the cops are suspecting something other than salt is in those burgers, they sure don't seem to be mentioning it and I just can't imagine how salt can land someone in the hospital. A couple of weeks ago I accidentally over salted some mashed potatoes for dinner. My husband took one bite, kind of choked, and then we threw them out. Had we eaten more than one bite of the super salty potatoes, I still don't think we'd have gotten sick, but the thing about humans is we have taste buds. We can tell when things are very salty. So one, we didn't eat them and two, we wouldn't have gotten sick even if we had.
I guess my point is, there's more to this story than what is in these articles. I am going to retract my earlier outrage at the ridiculousness of the situation and reserve judgment until we get the rest of the story. That is, IF we do get the rest of the story. I find that often these kinds of stories don't get proper follow up by the press. Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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That IS pretty weird. In the first article, it definitely sounds like she just spilled some salt on frozen patties (after all, it does say they tried to thump the salt off...how do you do that with raw meat??) I think that's much more plausable than the mixing story. I bet Fox News just got confused. Anyway, if anyone was arrested, it should have been the supervisor. It seems like the cop was just jumping the gun, though.
Posts: 31 | Registered: Aug 2007
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Ha. Jumping the gun. I just think there are real criminals he could go after instead of some woman working in McDs not making enough money to skin a flea.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Was the officer that ate the burger the same one who arrested Bull? Isn't that sort of dodgy?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I also worked at McDonald's back in the dark ages and can second or third what's been said about making the patties on site. I think its far more likely that Fox News mixed it up than that they were actually making hamburger patties as described.
Absolutley nothing is mixed on site at a McDonalds, or it least it wasn't back in the dark ages. Everything, including the salt and pepper mixture we sprinkled on the patties while they were on the grill came premixed and prepackaged from McDonalds head quarters. That procedure was important not only to ensure product uniformity but also to protect McDonald's recipes from competitors. If though its been ages since I worked there, I can't imagine them changing that procedure.
I also find it highly unusual that a food poisoning issue would be handled as a criminal investigation. Normally if someone reports that food make them sick, it goes to the department of health who also have labs to test food. In fact, they are very likely better equipped for food testing than a crime lab. Unlike Dag, I simply can't see a reason to send the food to a crime lab unless the initial investigation by the board of health suggested the food had been intensional tampered with.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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