If someone steals your money- do you call the police? Most would say yes.
I find more and more that the news media is becoming the quintessential slippery used car salesman of society. Headlines are misleading, people misrepresented, and the spin is always bias. It seems in an attempt to gain popularity and readership, the media will stop at nothing- even sacrifice the innocent for a good spin.
Case in point- Latreasa Goodman is currently being painted the crazy lady from Florida who called 911 because McDonald's was out of McNuggets. Headlines mock her, people chastise her, and I was ready to get a good laugh out of her myself...until I read the story.
The media, in short blurbs and headlines, would have you believe this lady called the cops because McDonald's didn't have nuggets. Only when you read down to the 6TH paragraph of most news stories do you see what really happened- that McDonald's TOOK her money after she ordered McNuggets- only to then tell her they didn't have them -and then refused to refund her money and tried to make her order something else on the menu.
"The manager just took my money and won't give me my money back, trying to make me get something off the menu that I don't want," Goodman said in one of the 911 calls. "I ordered chicken nuggets. They don't have chicken nuggets, and so I told her, 'Just give me my money back,' and she tells me I have to pick something else off the menu. She is not going to give me my money back, and she don't have the right to take my money."
"If I would have known they didn't have McNuggets, I wouldn't have given my money, and now she wants to give me a McDouble, but I don't want one."
Goodman told WPBF News 25 that she didn't "have a right to jump across the counter and snatch the money, so chose to handle it another way."
This is not about chicken McNuggets. This is about theft. This lady gave $6 for a product and then was not refunded when the product was not available. That is unacceptable. When she called 911- they did not direct her to the non- emergency line. Instead they did not help her so she could further become a laughing stock.
So what do we do as a society? We blame her for the fact that a corporation stole her money. We mock her for going against her baser instincts to jump across the counter and take her money out of the register (for which she would have been arrested) and laugh at her for being so concerned about her hard earned 6 dollars.
Should she have called 911? There were absolutely better ways to go about it. But this lady felt robbed and there was nothing she could do about it. For her- 911 meant involving the police. Because when you are victimized- the police are supposed to help.
I stand behind Goodman and I look down on the Media once again. The news media should be an outlet to uncover injustice- not perpetuate it.
"When you feel that you've been mistreated or misused or robbed out of your money, you have the right to call 911," Goodman said. "That's the purpose of 911, so I thought."
You're my hero of the week Latreasa Goodman!
