Transgendered Woman Beat Up In McDonald's; Employees Do Nothing

[Char-Nobyl]

that's fucked up, but by law, sitting back and doing nothing is not a crime.

Incorrect. It is indeed a crime, especially when things get serious. We all have a duty of care - a legal one.

Not sure what country you are in, but on a world wide basis the kind of law you are suggesting is very uncommon. Generally speaking people are free to do nothing. In most countries even peace officers are not required to get involved (and are sometimes prohibitted from getting involved) if they feel it puts them at risk.

Never watched Seinfeld, I take it? They're usually known as 'Good Samaritan laws,' and most states have them. The only circumstances when you're excused from intervening (it's still expected that you, for instance, call the police) is when taking action would place your life in danger.

And, correct me if I'm wrong, two overweight, unarmed black women aren't exactly people to be feared, especially not by a group of people. If one of them had pulled out a gun and started pistol-whipping the woman, it would have been a different story.

Funny actually that I thought of 'Seinfeld,' though. Because the plot of that episode was that they were watching and video taping a man get robbed by an unarmed man and did nothing. The episode ended with them being thrown in prison. It was the end of the series.

Here's a link, by the way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_Law

 

[Kerra]

One thing "extreme" minority groups have to understand is that by being minority groups their behavior IS abnormal to society, and makes people uncomfortable. Thus it takes less for them to antagonize other people. As such, they need to be careful.

We are trying to be normal, we aren't actively trying to be identified as a certain group that is different to everyone else, I would love being able to walk down the street and be seen as a 'actual girl' as you put it.

We are abnormal because society decides to see us as abnormal because we were born with bodies that don't fit our minds. There wouldn't be a problem if people would accept Transgendered people as the gender that they actually are. But instead we get berated with bullshit about how we are 'antagonizing' people by just trying to live our lives.

Ill remember that next time I walk down the street and see an amputee or someone with downs syndrome, may as well hit em with a brick since they 'antagonized' me

 

[Therumancer]

I disagree. Nothing basically grafts women's clothing onto someone who is a transgender and forces them to go around and act on their impulses.

Go and ask my multiple therapists exactly what happens if i dont wear female clothing or not act female, having it compared to someones choice to vocalise their opinions is a real kick in the teeth.

Im not saying that people dont have the right to disagree with my lifestyle or to hate me for it, its freedom of speech, but i do believe that a few minority groups are in a position where they are in a unique position of not having the choice to hide or show who they are, groups like racial minorities, transpeople, disabled people, etc.

Not trying to look female is NOT an option, alot of transpeople are in a fragile state and have a history of suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts, I myself know i have, and have no doubt that any regression back towards male especially one made out of fear of being who i am, no matter how small would be a devastating emotional blow.

Asserting that a transgirl acting male is the same thing as a supremacist choosing not to vocalise their opinions in public is just ignorance. Please sit down and talk to a transgender person before you try to compare what we deal with to what another group deals with. Ask them how hard it is to already deal with the constant glares and mumbles and reinforcements that most people will refuse to see you as your proper gender, and then ask them how they feel about being compared to white supremacists, who run their mouth off and live as ignorant bigots because they want to and not because it was basically the only option other than taking their own life

See, asserting that I'm ignorant on an issue because you happen to disagree with it, is no way to have a discussion. We might wind up having to agree to disagree, and this is a big issue overall, but a disagreement does not mean that someone is ignorant.

Understand that people who want to go transgender have existed for a very long time, albiet they represent an extreme minority of the population. They have survived long before political correctness in countries like the US, and continue to exist in societies around the world now that are not anywhere near as tolerant. If they were unable to adapt and blend in despite those tendencies, controlling their impulses, that would not be the case at all.

It's the same exact thing as a white supremecist, because to both a transgender and someone who instinctively believes in being the master race, it's a matter of instinct, but can easily be controlled in public. It's just that one is defended by political correctness, and the other is not as right now, one is generally considered more offensive than the other.

It's up for minorities to adapt to fit into society, not the other way around. It's the lesser of two evils compared to making far more people uncomfortable for the benefit for a scant handfull of individuals being able to enforce their will on everyone else.

Tolerance is all about not going after someone simply because they are differance. Basically "I'll leave them along to go about their life, if they leave me along to go about mine", however when someone decides to shove themselves down the throat of someone who doesn't care for it, well that's not being intolerant, that's responding to offensive behavior.

In the context of this discussion, the transgender was not attacked simply for being a transgender. The attack took place because the transgender went after some guy, and apparently persisted enough to piss off his girlfriends, and then got assaulted for it. The people involved obviously thought the transgender was in the wrong. Commenting on the victim being a transvestite, isn't all that differant than calling someone a skank, an insult is an insult and in the context of a heated incident I really don't believe some carry more weight than others. I don't think calling someone by the infamous "n" word or whatever is nessicarly an implication that someone is a racist (a whole differant discussion) when people are upset enough.

Also I never said that the people involved in the assault should get away with it, merely that there were aggravating factors involved. The law DOES include aggravating and mitigating factors to be considered in a judgement which affects the penelties. Someone asking for it, does not mean that your legally absolved of the crime, it just means that your going to face a lesser penelty.

Simply put, I think the person being a transgender is more or less irrelevent, and they don't deserve this incident to be given undo weight BECAUSE they are a transgender. It's not a hate crime, it's a bloody cat fight resulting from a crossdresser pushing too hard.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

It's kind of upsetting to me looking at all the people on this site who are defending the staff for not doing anything. But, I guess that's the world we live in now. These days, being an employee of McDonalds is as much as a reason as you need to let someone be degraded and assaulted in public.

The nerve of those people, wanting to keep their only means of making money.

Yes, because calling the police and/or trying to stop the fight would have automatically resulted in them being fired?

You really believe this? You think this is company policy? Really?

I can't believe the amount of people who have fallen for that awful excuse.

Calling the police is required, and was done.

Stepping in the physically stop the fight is guaranteed termination on the spot.

Some people need money more then gratitude. This is the real world, not a fantasy land where everyone can be a vigilante. Not only if you physically step in to stop the fight, you can sued by the attacker for inciting.

Then it's too bad that in the real world, we have little things called "Good Samaritan laws." For the employees, if they see a customer being beaten by two unarmed people who clearly don't pose a threat to their own lives even if they intervened, the choice is simple: intervene, and if McDonalds inexplicably feels like committing PR suicide, be fired. Or, alternatively, do nothing, video tape yourself doing nothing, then leave no doubt that you'll be fired and a healthy chance you'll be charged under the aforementioned Good Samaritan laws of Maryland.

Normally, I'd say it's a Catch-22, but it really isn't.

 

[Th37thTrump3t]

Prime example of The Bistander Effect. Pretty damn sad.

If you're getting paid minimum wage in a job you hate, would you step in to help someone? I wouldn't, because I know for a fact I'd be fired for it. It is NOT in your job description to act like security.

But on the other hand, say you did step in and got pretty busted up but helped the person anyway. You think the managers are going to really be happy with you calling in sick the next day? You'd be fired because it's your own fault.

The employees are usually told to stay out of situations like this. The only one who should have stepped in was the manager, because safety is HIS responsibility.

So the employees should not be blamed for doing nothing. Except the one who recorded it, although it depends on his intention. If it was a 'LOLZ LETS PUT IT ON YOUTUBE' then yeah, fire his ass. But if it was a 'I can't step in, but I can get vital evidence on my phone' then give the guy a pat on the back for at least doing SOMETHING.

And if anyone should have stepped in, it should have been one of the customers, since they wouldn't lose their job trying to protect someone.

There's a point where personal responsibility exceeds job duty.

 

[Therumancer]

One thing "extreme" minority groups have to understand is that by being minority groups their behavior IS abnormal to society, and makes people uncomfortable. Thus it takes less for them to antagonize other people. As such, they need to be careful.

We are trying to be normal, we aren't actively trying to be identified as a certain group that is different to everyone else, I would love being able to walk down the street and be seen as a 'actual girl' as you put it.

We are abnormal because society decides to see us as abnormal because we were born with bodies that don't fit our minds. There wouldn't be a problem if people would accept Transgendered people as the gender that they actually are. But instead we get berated with bullshit about how we are 'antagonizing' people by just trying to live our lives.

Ill remember that next time I walk down the street and see an amputee or someone with downs syndrome, may as well hit em with a brick since they 'antagonized' me

But again, your not normal. The vast majority of people aren't like you. You can't expect everyone to adapt to you and be uncomfortable by doing so. It's an unreasonable expectation, that affects a lot more people.

Right now your tolerated, nobody is going to tattoo a purple triangle on you and ship you off to a death camp, or call the church to have an inquisitor absolve you of your sins through torture before burning you at the stake. You cannot however force people to accept you or to change how they feel instinctively because you don't like it.

I'm not saying it doesn't suck, but that's the plight of being any kind of minority group that sticks out in a way that is negative to the majority. Just feel lucky that your around at a time, and in a society that tolerates, it could be far, far worse.

You try and force people to like something that they find repulsive, and it winds up becoming counter productive VERY quickly, as it brings about a LOT of anger.

To be blunt, I don't think there would have been an incident here if the TG in question had simply taken 'no' for an answer and not pushed the issue to the point of the guy's girlfriends becoming violent. That right there means it's not a hate crime or anything, because this entire incident is reactive, as opposed to people singling out a TG and
atacking them just for being.

 

[Newtonyd]

If you were to walk down the street tomorrow night and see a man being beaten to death and lying in the street - yet you keep on walking, you would be charged with serious offenses due to failure to act and negligence. Sorry. Same deal if this girl was seriously hurt. But she wasn't, so yeah, you wouldn't be charged in this particular incident - but your view of "I don't have to do anything" is completely wrong.

But yes, your faultless logic of "If it ain't in the constitution, I ain't have ta follow it!" is awesome. Keep trying to defend it, doesn't matter what you say, it's still illegal to not uphold your duty of care.

I see there's a lot of people saying and agreeing with this, but from what I've learned in my Criminal Law classes, this simply is not true. In the United States there is no 'Duty to rescue' unless there is a specific statute saying so (which is rare), or in the cases of special situations.

Special situations might include being a member of a household or part of the family of the victim, or if the person begins a rescue attempt, or if they have an employer - employee relationship, and some others. That's why the companies have their non-intervention policies in the first place, they wouldn't create them if they were against the law.

On the other hand, it goes against the fabric of just about any moral code to leave someone in trouble.

For more info, check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue#Criminal_law

*Edit* Just to make this clear, I read about a case where a man went into a bathroom and heard something. He climbed up on the toilet and peered over a stall to see his best friend raping a little girl. He did nothing because of some extreme 'bros before hoes' value. The girl died, the friend went to jail, but the witness got off free as a bird.

Can't remember the name of the case, but if I do I'll try to post it.

 

[Kerra]

I disagree. Nothing basically grafts women's clothing onto someone who is a transgender and forces them to go around and act on their impulses.

Go and ask my multiple therapists exactly what happens if i dont wear female clothing or not act female, having it compared to someones choice to vocalise their opinions is a real kick in the teeth.

Im not saying that people dont have the right to disagree with my lifestyle or to hate me for it, its freedom of speech, but i do believe that a few minority groups are in a position where they are in a unique position of not having the choice to hide or show who they are, groups like racial minorities, transpeople, disabled people, etc.

Not trying to look female is NOT an option, alot of transpeople are in a fragile state and have a history of suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts, I myself know i have, and have no doubt that any regression back towards male especially one made out of fear of being who i am, no matter how small would be a devastating emotional blow.

Asserting that a transgirl acting male is the same thing as a supremacist choosing not to vocalise their opinions in public is just ignorance. Please sit down and talk to a transgender person before you try to compare what we deal with to what another group deals with. Ask them how hard it is to already deal with the constant glares and mumbles and reinforcements that most people will refuse to see you as your proper gender, and then ask them how they feel about being compared to white supremacists, who run their mouth off and live as ignorant bigots because they want to and not because it was basically the only option other than taking their own life

See, asserting that I'm ignorant on an issue because you happen to disagree with it, is no way to have a discussion. We might wind up having to agree to disagree, and this is a big issue overall, but a disagreement does not mean that someone is ignorant.

Understand that people who want to go transgender have existed for a very long time, albiet they represent an extreme minority of the population. They have survived long before political correctness in countries like the US, and continue to exist in societies around the world now that are not anywhere near as tolerant. If they were unable to adapt and blend in despite those tendencies, controlling their impulses, that would not be the case at all.

It's the same exact thing as a white supremecist, because to both a transgender and someone who instinctively believes in being the master race, it's a matter of instinct, but can easily be controlled in public. It's just that one is defended by political correctness, and the other is not as right now, one is generally considered more offensive than the other.

It's up for minorities to adapt to fit into society, not the other way around. It's the lesser of two evils compared to making far more people uncomfortable for the benefit for a scant handfull of individuals being able to enforce their will on everyone else.

Tolerance is all about not going after someone simply because they are differance. Basically "I'll leave them along to go about their life, if they leave me along to go about mine", however when someone decides to shove themselves down the throat of someone who doesn't care for it, well that's not being intolerant, that's responding to offensive behavior.

In the context of this discussion, the transgender was not attacked simply for being a transgender. The attack took place because the transgender went after some guy, and apparently persisted enough to piss off his girlfriends, and then got assaulted for it. The people involved obviously thought the transgender was in the wrong. Commenting on the victim being a transvestite, isn't all that differant than calling someone a skank, an insult is an insult and in the context of a heated incident I really don't believe some carry more weight than others. I don't think calling someone by the infamous "n" word or whatever is nessicarly an implication that someone is a racist (a whole differant discussion) when people are upset enough.

Also I never said that the people involved in the assault should get away with it, merely that there were aggravating factors involved. The law DOES include aggravating and mitigating factors to be considered in a judgement which affects the penelties. Someone asking for it, does not mean that your legally absolved of the crime, it just means that your going to face a lesser penelty.

Simply put, I think the person being a transgender is more or less irrelevent, and they don't deserve this incident to be given undo weight BECAUSE they are a transgender. It's not a hate crime, it's a bloody cat fight resulting from a crossdresser pushing too hard.

The difference between a supremacist and a transgendered person is that a TG person is always identifiable as one while they are undergoing treatment, if your body is altered by hormones but your face is still identifiably male, you cant hide it. I dont think to myself 'hm, male or female clothes today', I wear female clothes because its what I need to do, its something that im told by my therapists to do, its something that is emotionally destructive to not do.

A supremacist on the other hand, can go out in public dressed however they want and choose to keep their mouths shut and no one would know the difference. I keep my mouth shut and dress even in male clothes and I still cant hide being transgendered. I dont know how to make it any clearer than to say that supremacy is a choice between voicing your opinions or stewing in silenece in your own hate filled bile and being trasngendered (for me atleast) is a choice between doing whatever i can to look and act and feel female, or very bad depression and likely suicide. Even if i tried to look male i couldn't at this point anyway, so there is really no point to that argument

And your comment about minorities having to adapt to fit the society, are you fucking kidding? Should Blacks have adapted to fit the slave owning white culture? Should gays just have adapted back when most of society would have happily seen them killed? Or maybe a different example, should americans fighting for independence just have adapted to british rule?

 

[Velocity Eleven]

But again, your not normal. The vast majority of people aren't like you. You can't expect everyone to adapt to you and be uncomfortable by doing so. It's an unreasonable expectation, that affects a lot more people.

the arrogance, you think cisgendered people are being victimised by us? ugh... I don't know where to start

 

[Kerra]

But again, your not normal. The vast majority of people aren't like you. You can't expect everyone to adapt to you and be uncomfortable by doing so. It's an unreasonable expectation, that affects a lot more people.

Just like blacks couldnt expect slave owners to free them, or accept them as part of society, or to end apartheid? Just like women couldnt expect the right to vote, or to be payed equal to males? Because it made the slave owners and male majority uncomfortable and was just unreasonable expecatations?

 

[Char-Nobyl]

Wait... I wouldn't have fucking helped if I was working there either... I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be paid enough to get beaten up on the job

Good call. No man should have to face two portly women who are clearly masters of the ancient fighting style, "Clumsy Kicking and Shouting."

If you're getting paid minimum wage in a job you hate, would you step in to help someone? I wouldn't, because I know for a fact I'd be fired for it. It is NOT in your job description to act like security.

...right. So in other words, because you don't like your job, and because you're not being explicitly paid to help another person clearly in need, you couldn't care less? Nice life philosophy.

But on the other hand, say you did step in and got pretty busted up but helped the person anyway. You think the managers are going to really be happy with you calling in sick the next day? You'd be fired because it's your own fault.

Yeah, because two overweight women are totally capable of bludgeoning an able-bodied male to the point that he can't flip burgers.

The employees are usually told to stay out of situations like this. The only one who should have stepped in was the manager, because safety is HIS responsibility.

And he did step in...and then he stepped back out. For some reason.

So the employees should not be blamed for doing nothing. Except the one who recorded it, although it depends on his intention. If it was a 'LOLZ LETS PUT IT ON YOUTUBE' then yeah, fire his ass. But if it was a 'I can't step in, but I can get vital evidence on my phone' then give the guy a pat on the back for at least doing SOMETHING.

He stood and taped her as she was convulsing on the ground. He even moved in to get a better shot. And then he uploaded it to the internet.

I think it's a bit difficult to argue that he was trying to aide her in a really indirect way.

And if anyone should have stepped in, it should have been one of the customers, since they wouldn't lose their job trying to protect someone.

...really? You just said that one of the reasons the employees shouldn't have stepped in is because any incurred injuries would have affected their ability to work. Do the customers not have jobs now? Or is it just McDonalds that forbids its employees from obeying Good Samaritan laws?

 

[Blatherscythe]

The funny thing is I only had to go to the hospital once, but that was because I got my ribs broken.

You must have a strange sense of humor, if getting sent to the hospital is your idea of funny. It is perfect for some terrible puns though, involving either the phrase "side splittingly funny" or "had you in stitches". But I'll just take the high road and hope you are no longer being attacked by people.

I find it funny in the sense that I am a small person so you figure that I would've gotten hospitalized more during my wonderful encounters with violent people, but hey I may be small but I can take a hit (a benefit from being from a third world country I guess, though I doubt that has anything to do with it).

This saddens me, where in the States (if it was in the States) did this happen?

Also, yes it's still a hate crime. Just like skinheads beating up Jewish people is considered a hate crime.

People can be saints, can be heroes, can be paragons of virtue, but they can also be life lower than scum. I'm sorry you had to put up with this.

In my high school in Florida mostly, it was in a small red neck town so it was bound to happen (Southern hospitality is total BS).

No Southern Hospitality exsists, you don't qualify because your not a white, straight, christian, male with republican political views and xenophobic/racist tendancies along with a hard on for guns. No most people qualify for Southern Hostility because they deviate from the qualifications for above hospitality. In short, the Southern States sucks for pretty much anyone who isn't from the Southern States.

 

[Newtonyd]

...really? You just said that one of the reasons the employees shouldn't have stepped in is because any incurred injuries would have affected their ability to work. Do the customers not have jobs now? Or is it just McDonalds that forbids its employees from obeying Good Samaritan laws?

Ahoy, I completely agree with just about everything that you're saying except that bit about Good Samaritan laws. Rather than implying a duty to rescue, Good Samaritan laws are created to protect those who act to help others in danger from legal action afterwards.

I'm sorry if I'm being picky about these things, but it seems like many people really don't understand the laws in place (for good reason, some of this stuff is obscure and non-intuitive).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_samaritan_law

 

[RabbidKuriboh]

speaking as a mcdonalds employee if any of them had even put a finger on either of the assailants they would have had their asses sued and would be immediatly fired

although personally i would have stepped in, no job is worth doing the right thing

 

[Slycne]

Too all of the comments that are in essence.

But I could get fired.

Right, because McDonalds would sure love to endure "McDonalds Employee Fired For Saving Transgendered Woman's Life". Worst case, you are fired and they hire you back after a shitstorm of bad media coverage. It's possibly even more likely that you'd be offered a better job by some other benefactor who believes you did the right thing.

That's putting aside the common human decency, which you all apparently forgot. I also have to wonder how many would be quick to change their comments if the victim of the assault was a child, animal or simply an appropriately aged member of the opposite sex you found attractive.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

But again, your not normal. The vast majority of people aren't like you. You can't expect everyone to adapt to you and be uncomfortable by doing so. It's an unreasonable expectation, that affects a lot more people.

...that flies in the face of every equal-rights law on the face of the Earth. You have effectively just condemned (in America, at least) every race that isn't white, every religion that isn't Christian, and every person who isn't completely able-bodied.

Know why buildings are required to have wheelchair access? Take a wild guess. And it isn't because we told the handicapped to go fuck themselves for expecting us "normals" to accommodate them.

Right now your tolerated, nobody is going to tattoo a purple triangle on you and ship you off to a death camp, or call the church to have an inquisitor absolve you of your sins through torture before burning you at the stake.

I see. So unless your group is being actively and systematically murdered, you should be happy with your status in society.

Funny thing, though. Remember Matt Shepard? He was essentially crucified. And all those camps where parents send their kids to "Pray the gay away"? Or how life insurance companies liberally abuse the loophole of 'Civil partnerships' to get out of paying widows/widowers of gay couples?

I'm not saying it doesn't suck, but that's the plight of being any kind of minority group that sticks out in a way that is negative to the majority. Just feel lucky that your around at a time, and in a society that tolerates, it could be far, far worse.

Except the definition of "tolerance" isn't "not being actively slaughtered." Tolerance is the poor man's acceptance, but what we have now certainly isn't the 'live and let live' lifestyle that tolerance would suggest.

You try and force people to like something that they find repulsive, and it winds up becoming counter productive VERY quickly, as it brings about a LOT of anger.

Can't remember his name at the moment, but I remember a black boy from Chicago who made the mistake of whistling at a white woman in the deep south. Disgusted by this blatant endorsement of inter-racial relationships, several local white men took it upon themselves to lynch him.

Under your thinking, they would be released scot-free on the grounds that they hated black people so hard that their anger couldn't be anything but justified.

To be blunt,

Oh, man. I'm on the verge of bursting into laughter here. You're going to be blunt now? Jesus. Considering what you've said already, I dread what I'm about to read.

I don't think there would have been an incident here if the TG in question had simply taken 'no' for an answer and not pushed the issue to the point of the guy's girlfriends becoming violent. That right there means it's not a hate crime or anything, because this entire incident is reactive, as opposed to people singling out a TG and
atacking them just for being.

Maybe I'm missing something. In neither article did it suggest that anything had happened besides the boyfriend of one of the accused possibly flirting with her.

And besides, remember that black boy I mentioned earlier? Well, he whistled at a white woman, and was lynched for it. Not solely because he was black, nor solely because he whistled at a local woman. By your logic, that means lynching him isn't a hate crime simply because race was the overarching factor...even if without it, there would have been no crime.

 

[trigz04]

I'm not so sure this is a hate crime, as one of the article states, but it is definitely a depressing and violent act that should have been stopped, not recorded.

I'm glad someone intervened. I think we're slowly becoming a society of spectators, who allow our morals to take the backseat, when it doesn't directly involve us. Acts of bravery like Vicki Thomas, I believe, should be emulated and stories like this should be shared.

We're becoming spectators because we get sued for the good deeds we carry out.

Like the man who got sued for rescuing his carpool mate from a wrecked car, because she became paralyzed after.

Just saying.

While he did get sued, there are good Samaritan laws for a reason that make people who intervene to save someone from immediate danger and harm the person they are trying to save in the process immune to lawsuits.