{"id":818,"date":"2004-03-30T13:16:13","date_gmt":"2004-03-30T18:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2004\/03\/strip_search_hoaxes\/"},"modified":"2004-03-30T13:16:13","modified_gmt":"2004-03-30T18:16:13","slug":"strip_search_hoaxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2004\/03\/strip_search_hoaxes\/","title":{"rendered":"Strip Search Hoaxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

What does it take to have someone strip searched? If it’s a fast food employee, apparently not much<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Authorities say a 39-year-old Taco Bell manager forced a 17-year-old female employee to strip and endure a body search after a caller posing as a police officer gave him instructions to do so at the Fountain Hills restaurant this week.
\nThe girl was taken to a back room in the restaurant and told to disrobe, said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Once naked, she was asked to do jumping jacks and was then subjected to a body search, Arpaio said.
\nThe apparent ruse began when a caller posing as a police officer called the Taco Bell this week giving a general description of a female employee he said needed to be detained as a crime suspect.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Turns out this isn’t the only manager to get duped<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It might seem implausible that any manager could be compelled by an unknown caller to order someone to entirely disrobe and submit to a humiliating search for drugs or stolen money. Or that someone would succumb to such an examination. But investigators say there have been dozens of similar cases since 1999, involving Burger King, Wendy’s, Applebee’s and others. Similar incidents have been reported in Massachusetts, South Dakota, Indiana, Utah and Ohio. The managers and the victims of such incidents have been male and female. Investigators have begun linking the cases and say they believe the hoaxes are the work of a single person calling from North Florida public telephones using a phone card.
\nHis likely motive, they say: Not money, but power and perversion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These mistakes can be costly:<\/p>\n

These cases raise enormous, complex liability issues: Last summer, an Odessa, Texas, Burger King franchise paid $35,000 to settle a civil suit filed by an employee who alleged she was forced to submit to a strip search by a male manager who received a similar phone call. The restaurant’s manager was arrested and charged with “illegal restraint,” and fined $500.
\nAnd last week, Wendy’s International Inc. said it had been hit with four lawsuits by former workers of Boston-area company-owned outlets. In February, managers there, acting on a call from a man posing as a police officer, ordered the workers to submit to a strip search for allegedly stolen money.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Employers are justified in being concerned about employee theft, but physical searches are a bad idea, especially when initiated by an anonymous phone call.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does it take to have someone strip searched? If it’s a fast food employee, apparently not much: Authorities say a 39-year-old Taco Bell manager forced a 17-year-old female employee to strip and endure a body search after a caller posing as a police officer gave him instructions to do so at the Fountain Hills […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}