HOT PURSUIT

I don’t know how many times in the past that I’ve been lured into watching a short video and left thinking, “I can’t believe what I just saw.” I guess you could refer to them as “ah-ha” moments.
We’ve seen this happen many times with videos of police encounters with citizens often blasted across social media. However, what generally is first put out there doesn’t usually end up being the entire story. And quite honestly once the entire story is shown, it totally changes the context of what we were initially led to believe.
It could be an age thing with me or perhaps I’ve become wiser in my old age.
I think the one time this hasn’t been in the case in recent memory, at least for me, is the killing of George Floyd at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. I recall seeing the video right away and thinking there has to be more to this story than an officer kneeling on the neck of another man for an insane amount of time. Sadly, in that case, what we saw is pretty much what there was. It turned out to be nothing less than a bad cop abusing his power caught on video.
As part of the news media, we are used to people touting their positions and getting out their ideas or causes by showing only what’s going to make them look good. The media has to be extremely careful with not falling into this trap by showing only one side.
On a smaller and much less significant scale than a police shooting or nasty police encounter, this has been playing out over the past couple weeks in Owatonna with a video of Dairy Queen workers dealing with a customer trying to get her food.
After watching the video of a DQ worker throwing food at a customer and the customer subsequently falling down while trying to kick it back at the worker, it’s easy to jump to a conclusion that the blame should be totally pointed at the DQ workers. Of course, what the video doesn’t show is what led up to the food tossing and customer falling.
I don’t agree with what the DQ workers did. Their action was unjustified and should not have happened. They are lucky the woman wasn’t injured after falling down on a slippery sidewalk.
However, once the rest of the story is shared, though there is no video to support it, it quickly becomes evident that there is more to this than some irresponsible DQ workers.
We are fortunate to have the “rest of the story” this week from staff writer Kay Fate, who sat down to do an exclusive interview with the three former DQ workers in hopes of giving readers some context of what really happened leading up to their inappropriate behavior.
There is something that you won’t find in Kay’s story. There are no names of the DQ employees. It isn’t normal for us to not name people in stories. But because of what has happened with the three teenagers since the video went viral, we chose to protect their identities by not naming them or photographing them. They have received threats against their personal safety.
As polarized as this country currently is, it did not make any sense for us to name the DQ workers, especially given the fact that people are threatening to hurt them.
After reading Kay’s story, it quickly became apparent that the customer did not help the situation in any way with how she acted toward the DQ employees. She reportedly was acting belligerent and throwing out profanities like a swearing sailor because of the service she had received.
This is where we all need to take a deep breath and remind ourselves of the times we’re living in. Remember that thing called COVID-19 and how it has impacted businesses, especially restaurants? Short tempers and being quick fused just doesn’t cut it right now.
As I review the DQ video, I am once again reminded that people need to be careful about jumping to conclusions and reach to find out the rest of the story.
Or better yet, let us go in hot pursuit of tracking down the story for you so you can make an informed decision of what you’re really seeing on snippets of video.