# Do you want fries with that? (McDonald's employee beats customers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 15, 2011, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693 "2011-10-15T00:10:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/241 "2011-10-20T04:30:39Z")
McDonalds need to bring back the “I’d Hit It” campaign. This guy could be their spokesman. “Yes, I hit it! And I hope they burn in HELL!” /Samuel L Jackson ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/242 "2011-10-20T06:38:28Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > It kind of wigs me out that what I’m hearing from a lot of you guys is “When attacked in any way, no matter how minor or severe, it is acceptable and even expected to go completely out of your mind with rage/panic and use force on the attacker until he/she is dead, even if other options such as walking away and/or stopping short of death were available.” > > I just don’t really care for “but he was totally irrational and couldn’t help his behavior!” as an excuse. And I don’t think that beating someone to death is an acceptable response to being slapped/threatened in public. Prior to this thread I would have said that probably most people felt as I do. Who got beaten to death? ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/243 "2011-10-20T06:51:57Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > Who got beaten to death? I think a horse got beaten to death somewhere 'round these parts. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/244 "2011-10-20T07:03:43Z")
> [@Lukeinva](#): > > How provoked he was? A slap in the face deserves a beat down with a metal rod? What about a kick in the shin with a pointy toe? A shotgun to the head? Don’t get me wrong those two clearly did provoke him… but getting beat like that with a metal rod absolutely is assault with a deadly weapon. No they didn’t “provoke him” they chased him round the restaurant trying to continue an already started assault. And I also don’t think “a slap in the face” deserves a beat-down, so it’s a good job this was “a slap in the face” - it was way more than that. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/245 "2011-10-20T10:59:53Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > Who got beaten to death? Meh. Nobody, but IMO that was just lucky, considering one person wound up with a skull fracture and brain damage, and also considering that we had lots of people in the thread claiming that in the heat of rage/fear/whatever, the guy couldn’t possibly be expected to “precisely modulate” his response. So death was certainly a very possible outcome from his actions. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/246 "2011-10-20T11:22:26Z")
The original video has been removed, but I just watched a copy of it. I was expecting something brutal and excessive. This didn’t seem like it. People saying he “kept on and on” hitting them. No he didn’t. I count eight strikes in total, between two assailants. Maybe a couple more while the camera was off him. I say good luck to him for looking after himself. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/247 "2011-10-20T13:00:06Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > considering one person wound up with a skull fracture and brain damage She has brain damage :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/248 "2011-10-20T13:08:27Z")
I think she had it before she came in. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/249 "2011-10-20T13:32:43Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > I think she had it before she came in. Yuk yuk. Yes, I saw a news report indicating that one of subjects of the pipe beating suffered possible brain damage, but I checked and it looks like that info came solely from the person’s mom, who is probably not an unbiased source. Still, my point stands that if your beating gave someone a skull fracture, it also could have killed them, and it’s pretty much just luck which way it went. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/250 "2011-10-20T13:45:46Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > It kind of wigs me out that what I’m hearing from a lot of you guys is “When attacked in any way, no matter how minor or severe, it is acceptable and even expected to go completely out of your mind with rage/panic and use force on the attacker until he/she is dead, even if other options such as walking away and/or stopping short of death were available.” “Acceptable” isn’t the word I’d use. “Understandable” works, though. When somebody goes batshit on me, my A-1 priority is to make sure I don’t die. If that means whacking them more times than I should, then that’s what might happen. The lesson learned is “don’t go batshit on people.” Bad things happen. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/251 "2011-10-20T13:55:36Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Yes, I saw a news report indicating that one of subjects of the pipe beating suffered possible brain damage… The [source](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/10/17/2011-10-17_woman_beat_with_pipe_by_mcdonalds_cashier_faces_permanent_brain_damage_mother_cl.html) for this assertion is her mother, and is contradicted by her doctors. > [@](#): > > “She has memory loss. She’s been heavily sedated. The doctors say it’s too early to tell,” said Darbeau’s mother, who declined to give her name. Also, she was not beaten with a _pipe_ - the object that Mr. McIntosh picked up was three feet long and a quarter of an inch thick, and used to clear the drain on the griddle. It looks about like [this](http://www.despreslaporte.com/189-189-3391-kitchen-tools/Cleaning_rod_for_fryer.html?DivisionID=2&marqueID=41). It was the nearest thing to pick up to fend off an assault, and it is seems likely that the extent of the damage it was doing was unclear until well after those twenty seconds had elapsed. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/252 "2011-10-20T13:58:08Z")
OK, whatever. I have officially lost interest in this topic. My final thoughts: Everyone involved acted like a giant douchebag. It is not OK to leap over a counter and start attacking a McDonald’s worker. It is not OK to keep beating the shit out of someone after you have already beaten them onto the ground. That McDonald’s seems like a shitty location and I would probably not go there anymore if I lived in the area. Glad nobody died. Don’t really give a shit if the counter worker goes to jail. Think the other two people should go to jail too. That’s all. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/253 "2011-10-20T14:37:28Z")
I’m a bit disappointed that you’re ducking out. Since you seem to feel that in his defense against two assailants with the use of a fairly unassuming-looking object (variously blown up into a “pipe” or a “bat” in other accounts) constituted a criminal act, I’d be curious to know what you think a correct and lawful response would have been. For my part, I think that if two people come at you with such clear confidence of doing you harm, I think it’s reasonable to assume that they have the means to do it, and respond accordingly. Grabbing whatever is handy and using it defensively does not seem out of line in that context, and I think that the charges against this man are ridiculous. In the context of an unprovoked attack in the workplace, it doesn’t seem reasonable to require someone to value their assailants’ physical security over their own. “Oh, he should have spent more time searching the kitchen for a somewhat _lighter_ object to fend them off with.” “Oh, darn, he got stabbed in the kidneys.” ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/254 "2011-10-20T14:49:41Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > I’m a bit disappointed that you’re ducking out. Since you seem to feel that in his defense against two assailants with the use of a fairly unassuming-looking object (variously blown up into a “pipe” or a “bat” in other accounts) constituted a criminal act, I’d be curious to know what you think a correct and lawful response would have been. > > For my part, I think that if two people come at you with such clear confidence of doing you harm, I think it’s reasonable to assume that they have the means to do it, and respond accordingly. Grabbing whatever is handy and using it defensively does not seem out of line in that context, and I think that the charges against this man are ridiculous. > > In the context of an unprovoked attack in the workplace, it doesn’t seem reasonable to require someone to value their assailants’ physical security over their own. “Oh, he should have spent more time searching the kitchen for a somewhat _lighter_ object to fend them off with.” “Oh, darn, he got stabbed in the kidneys.” That isn’t what she was saying. She was saying it looked like he went too far in exercising his undoubted right to self-defence, not that he lacked such a right. It isn’t hard to reconstruct what she thinks would be lawful exercise - to cease hitting them once they were down. The uncertainty here is that all we have to go by is the tape. Reasonable people can disagree on what constitutes 'too far" in the heat of the moment, when we have imperfect knowledge of what happened, etc. It is not _legally_ correct that there is no such thing as “too far”. It isn’t the case that, one you have a legitimate right to self-defence, you can do literally anything to the other person. All is in context. In some contexts you are justified in using even deadly force, in some you are not; generally, however much you are riled, you are not justified in continuing to hit someone when they are no longer a threat; but we don’t know if it is obvious these two were no longer a threat. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/255 "2011-10-20T14:53:05Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > McDonalds need to bring back the “I’d Hit It” campaign. > > This guy could be their spokesman. “Yes, I hit it! And I hope they burn in HELL!” /Samuel L Jackson I still think this would go better with their “You deserve a break today” campaign. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/256 "2011-10-20T14:56:35Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > I’m a bit disappointed that you’re ducking out. Since you seem to feel that in his defense against two assailants with the use of a fairly unassuming-looking object (variously blown up into a “pipe” or a “bat” in other accounts) constituted a criminal act, I’d be curious to know what you think a correct and lawful response would have been. I’m not a legal expert and I never claimed to be, so I’m not going to offer an opinion about what he should have done in order to meet the legal requirement for self-defense or whatever. What I do think, and what I think I have been clear about since my first post in this thread, is that he should have knocked off with the beating once his target was on the ground. As for “ducking out”, in addition to not really being all that interested in this topic after having restated my point many times over the course of this thread, I also have a work deadline that is breathing down my neck. 😛 Sorry to disappoint. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/257 "2011-10-20T15:03:03Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > It isn’t hard to reconstruct what she thinks would be lawful exercise - to cease hitting them once they were down. According to eyewitnesses, that’s [exactly what he did.](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/14/rayon-mcintosh-mcdonalds-_n_1011580.html) > [@](#): > > Sources say McIntosh ordered his assailants to stay down, and belted them each time they tried to get up. If they would lying like dead fish on the floor and he kept whaling on them, that would be different - but these are two people in a confined space, who mere seconds ago where chasing him with clear intent to injure him. Was he really obliged to allow them to get fully to their feet, on the off chance that their intent was to shake hands and apologize? Or might that not have been asking to be stabbed or shot? > [@MsWhatsit](#): > > As for “ducking out”, in addition to not really being all that interested in this topic after having restated my point many times over the course of this thread, I also have a work deadline that is breathing down my neck. Oh, hell - I have a job to get to, too. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/258 "2011-10-20T15:19:49Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I still think this would go better with their “You deserve a break today” campaign. I’d like a new campaign. Bring back those two people who do that hand dancing crap, and have someone come along and start beating them on the head with a pipe. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/259 "2011-10-20T19:00:21Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > According to eyewitnesses, that’s [exactly what he did.](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/14/rayon-mcintosh-mcdonalds-_n_1011580.html)If they would lying like dead fish on the floor and he kept whaling on them, that would be different - but these are two people in a confined space, who mere seconds ago where chasing him with clear intent to injure him. > > Was he really obliged to allow them to get fully to their feet, on the off chance that their intent was to shake hands and apologize? Or might that not have been asking to be stabbed or shot? Hence my next comments in that same post: > [@](#): > > The uncertainty here is that all we have to go by is the tape. Reasonable people can disagree on what constitutes 'too far" in the heat of the moment, when we have imperfect knowledge of what happened, etc. > > It is not legally correct that there is no such thing as “too far”. It isn’t the case that, one you have a legitimate right to self-defence, you can do literally anything to the other person. All is in context. In some contexts you are justified in using even deadly force, in some you are not; generally, however much you are riled, you are not justified in continuing to hit someone when they are no longer a threat; but we don’t know if it is obvious these two were no longer a threat. No doubt the jury will have _all_ the info, not just a tape and some commentaries. They will decide if he went too far or not. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693/260 "2011-10-21T02:06:42Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Hence my next comments in that same post: > > No doubt the jury will have _all_ the info, not just a tape and some commentaries. They will decide if he went too far or not. Well, it is important to know the “weapon”. Presumably, they cannot indict him strictly on the definition of the law with "possession of a deadly weapon"if it was simply a “kitchen utensil on hand”… the charges of indictment are bullshit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-want-fries-with-that-mcdonalds-employee-beats-customers/599693.md?page=14)