# Shocking, Disturbing Restaurant Assault Vid: Woman Allegedly Beaten Into a Seizure As Employees Laug **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 22, 2011, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398 "2011-04-22T20:05:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![flickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7bcc69/32.png) [@flickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flickster)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/121 "2011-04-24T03:32:42Z")
[Report from the Baltimore Sun](http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-mcdonalds-beating-20110423,0,3336656.story) Transgender Woman - check McD’s employee that recorded the vid - fired Investigation continues ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/122 "2011-04-24T03:35:44Z")
The sad fact is that because they are women, they will not get anything even close to the same sentence they would if they were men. Hell, the guy holding the camera will probably get a longer sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/123 "2011-04-24T03:48:13Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Really? You would have put yourself in front of these chicks? I would. I HAVE stepped between fighting people. I’ve had to render aid to a police officer laying in the middle of the street, gut-shot (the bullet found a little crack to slip through on the side of the body armor), while cops were still having a stand-off, with a few shots zinging by my head. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/124 "2011-04-24T03:57:39Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > We’ve had two people with legitimate medical backgrounds say that the seizure in the video could have been real. What’s your medical training that leads you to conclude that it was not? I’m an RN with 24 years experience working with neurology patients. I’ve seen hundreds of seizures and probably a hundred fake seizures, as well as conversion disorders (which are not seizures, but they’re not _fake_ seizures either). The person faking the seizure in the video demonstrated purposeful movement (flipping his body over, smacking the wall) that is never seen in real seizures. It wasn’t even a good fake seizure. ---
**Author:** ![flickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7bcc69/32.png) [@flickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flickster)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/125 "2011-04-24T04:08:16Z")
Brom the above linked Baltimore Sun report > [@](#): > > The owner of the Rosedale McDonald’s announced Saturday afternoon that the employee who taped the beating had been fired. > > “My first and foremost concern is with the victim,” franchise owner Mitchell McPherson said in a statement, adding that action might be taken against other restaurant workers as well. “I’m as shocked and disturbed by this assault as anyone would be. The behavior displayed in the video is unfathomable and reprehensible.” Which means, “Sh\*t, I’ll be lucky to have a dime left after this legal battle is done” As for the two attackers: > [@](#): > > County police confirmed that the attack occurred April 18 in the 6300 block of Kenwood Ave. Police said the 14-year-old girl has been charged as a juvenile, while charges were pending against an 18-year-old woman. Reached Saturday, police officials said the investigation was continuing. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/126 "2011-04-24T04:13:01Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > I’m an RN with 24 years experience working with neurology patients. I’ve seen hundreds of seizures and probably a hundred fake seizures, as well as conversion disorders (which are not seizures, but they’re not _fake_ seizures either). > > The person faking the seizure in the video demonstrated purposeful movement (flipping his body over, smacking the wall) that is never seen in real seizures. > > It wasn’t even a good fake seizure. Why is it so important to you that it be a fake seizure? ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/127 "2011-04-24T04:21:05Z")
Nobody with a legitimate medical background would attempt to speak authoritatively about somebody’s medical condition based on something they saw on YouTube. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/128 "2011-04-24T04:22:19Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Why is it so important to you that it be a fake seizure? It’s not. I was merely responding to all the conjecture. In fact, I think it was a very smart move. mmm ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/129 "2011-04-24T04:23:20Z")
Oddly enough, responsible [news reports](http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-mcdonalds-beating-20110423,0,3336656.story)now write: The video shows two females — one of them a 14-year-old girl — repeatedly kicking and punching Polis in the head as an employee and a patron try to intervene. Others can be heard laughing, and men are seen standing idly by. Not quite the black on white lynch mob that were called out initially - despite having seen the same video. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/130 "2011-04-24T04:24:55Z")
> [@tnetennba](#): > > Nobody with a legitimate medical background would attempt to speak authoritatively about somebody’s medical condition based on something they saw on YouTube. You are right. I should have been clear that it is merely my opinion that it is fake. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/131 "2011-04-24T04:57:43Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > You are right. I should have been clear that it is merely my opinion that it is fake. It certainly _could_ be fake. Without being able to assess the patient at the time, I couldn’t say for certain. It doesn’t seem indicative of an epileptic seizure, but it’s certainly in the realm of possibility that the victim had some sort of seizure disorder, coupled with the physical - and psychological - trauma of the event, that caused the reaction. It’s entirely possible that it’s faked. It’s also equally possible that it’s real. You know as well as I do (and I don’t mean that to sound snarky) that we have to treat it as legit until proven otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/132 "2011-04-24T05:25:14Z")
> [@Nadir](#): > > I’m guessing the verbal altercation started over something like an un-paid crack bill. [Villager in the St. Bedevere scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail] Because … black people … use … crack? [\VitSBsfMPatHG] ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/133 "2011-04-24T05:59:30Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > I know! They’re shitty tippers too. Note how they didn’t even spill their Tiger Woods while dishing out the beatdown. Fuckin’ canadians are the shit. ---
**Author:** ![Khaki\_Campbell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de053/32.png) [@Khaki\_Campbell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khaki_Campbell)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/134 "2011-04-24T06:36:41Z")
[self-censored] ---
**Author:** ![enomaj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/59ef9b/32.png) [@enomaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enomaj)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/135 "2011-04-24T07:23:19Z")
> [@tnetennba](#): > > Nobody with a legitimate medical background would attempt to speak authoritatively about somebody’s medical condition based on something they saw on YouTube. WRONG! [Cite](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBYk4F164Hk)😃 ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/136 "2011-04-24T10:47:11Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > … unless she had some pre-existing medical condition. Seizure disorders aren’t terribly uncommon, you realize. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/137 "2011-04-24T11:35:22Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > You know as well as I do (and I don’t mean that to sound snarky) that we have to treat it as legit until proven otherwise. Well, on the job we do; in this setting we are free to speculate. 😃 Maybe I’m just jaded. When co-workers and I see a (badly) faked seizure, we just sort of roll our eyes. Don’t get me wrong - we respond. And we monitor. We’ve even treated. But when it is obvious to the point of being ridiculous (for example, the patient watching you out of the corner of his eye while he’s ‘seizing’), and when it happens every twenty minutes, you start to feel manipulated. I should also point out that I am in a position to know EEG results of patients with ‘seizure disorders’, and therefore often get confirmation on whether seizures I have witnessed have been legitimate. With all that said, \*\* tnetennba\*\* was correct: it was irresponsible for me to state as fact that this was a fake. I posted in haste. mmm ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/138 "2011-04-24T12:10:47Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > From what I understand, before a transgendered person starts on the surgeries, s/he has to spend at least a year living as the desired gender. That is, a M2F person has to dress as a woman, and act like a woman…which includes using the women’s room. This is technically accurate within the required standards of care, but it’s important to understand that transition does not always include surgery, for a variety of reasons, including personal preference, medical ineligibility or lack of finance. There is a very wide spectrum of personal circumstances that fall under the transgender umbrella. That having been said, it doesn’t matter what the state of the body of Chrissy Polis (the victim, a _woman_ who is transgender, not a cross dresser, not a transvestite and not a he) is, what surgeries she has or has not undergone, what hormones she is or isn’t taking or what her genitalia looks like. That’s personal information, and nothing **s** he needs to verify or qualify in order to access a women’s restroom. She’s lived as a woman for a number of years, and quite clearly _she_ wasn’t a danger to anyone by virtue of using the women’s room. And this is the case almost universally, which is why this case makes the childish “potty panic” that always arises when transgender protections are debated legislatively so clearly facile and backwards. No one can point to a any situation in which cisgender criminals have cross-dressed in order to gain access to women’s rooms or changing facilities in order to molest, assault or voyeur. We can, however, point to situations that occur with alarming regularity where trans people are harassed, assaulted or arrested (and occasionally assaulted _and_ arrested) for attempting to simply pee in the appropriate place. Trans women are women, and are endangered when forced to use men’s rooms (not mention that it’s simply inappropriate) and equally endangered when they try to use women’s rooms and cannot rely upon the protection of law and the societal progress that protection brings about. Trans men similarly don’t belong in women’s rooms, that they generally need to sit down to urinate is immaterial. As for Chrissy Polis, I pray for her recovery, and the imprisonment of her attackers. I also look forward to the franchisee of this McDonald’s location going broke paying her off. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/139 "2011-04-24T12:34:05Z")
> [@tumbleddown](#): > > As for Chrissy Polis, I pray for her recovery, and the imprisonment of her attackers. I also look forward to the franchisee of this McDonald’s location going broke paying her off. Why should the owner of the restaurant pay and go broke? Why should he, and presumably his wife and children, lose their income and the money they’ve invested in the store? Why should his employees, most of whom were not involved nor perhaps even working that shift, lose their jobs and benefits? How could the store owner have foreseen that this would happen, and what steps should he have been reasonably expected to take to prevent it happening? Lots of people will be negatively affected and hurt should the franchisee “go broke”, so I’m just wondering what it is that you base your opinon on? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398/140 "2011-04-24T13:19:29Z")
> [@tumbleddown](#): > > Trans women are women, No, they aren’t. They are either men who place too much importance on traditional gender roles, or they are men with body dysmorphia. Neither of which makes them a woman. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-disturbing-restaurant-assault-vid-woman-allegedly-beaten-into-a-seizure-as-employees-laug/579398.md?page=8)