Prankster Engineers Restaurant Strip Searches
In these dangerous times, it’s comforting to know that so many people have taken to heart our government’s admonitions to cooperate with law enforcement authorities whenever possible. People like Allan Mathis, former manager of a South Dakota fast food restaurant, who, at the request of a police officer who phoned him up one day, held a 19-year-old female employee in a back office against her willl for three hours, forcing her to remove her clothes and have her body cavities searched. Well, except that it wasn’t actually a police officer who phoned him; it was some random prankster who apparently has been phoning up restaurants from Arizona to Massachussetts, successfully getting managers to search female employees and patrons: Bizarre hoax leads to strip searches.
March 31st, 2004 at 3:20 pm
I think the managers are lying. Gess that is why this story is posted on this site.
March 31st, 2004 at 3:57 pm
Kudos to the prankster(s). Any manager stupid enough to violate someone’s rights because someone SAYS they’re the authorities deserves the lawsuit that’ll result.
March 31st, 2004 at 7:04 pm
Oh jeez that is d=umb… I mean REALLY REALLY Dumb.
Usually I get pissed off when people online send me chain messages telling me that such-and-such free web service will start charging soon unless you forward this message to everyone on your buddy list… I snap at the sender because unless there is some media verification of this message, there ain’t no chance it’s going to happen.
Those who send those messages along are usually 18 years old or younger and don’t know better because they don’t spend much time online or paying attention to the news. That’s understandable…
BUt for a MANAGER to fall for something like this? Give me a break — “Oh yeah, I am calling because Jane is suspected of terrorist ties. I am from the Office of Homeland security and if you could, uh, go ahead and strip search her and check her body cavities, I bet you’ll find her loaded with heroin that she was going to sell to finance her terrorist network….”
…Right, someone ON THE PHONE passes on the news and the manager takes it seriously. We truly must be a nation of idiots.
April 1st, 2004 at 8:18 am
Nice find, yet again.
April 11th, 2004 at 5:07 pm
FYI, the AP has another article that contains a few more details not found in the ABC story…
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=757&e=10&u=/ap/20040409/ap_on_re_us/strip_search_hoax