An Honest Mistake
 |
|
The worst aviation accident in history occurred on March 27, 1977, between two huge Boeing 747 passenger jets at Los Rodeos Airport on the Spanish island of Tenerife. A combination of foggy weather and unusual congestion resulted in aircraft having to use as taxiways the runways that otherwise would have been clear. The accident occurred when Captain Veldhuyzen van Zanten of KLM Flight 4805 began his full power takeoff run without having received clearance to do so. Because of the heavy traffic, Pan American Flight 1736 was still on the same runway, moving toward an exit. Due to the fog, neither aircraft was aware of the location of the other until moments before they were both torn apart when the two collided. Five hundred eighty three people died in the collision!
Recorded radio traffic demonstrated that the air traffic controller had used non-standard language that led Captain van Zanten to believe that he had been cleared for takeoff. It was an honest mistake!
On September 6, 2018, Dallas police officer Amber Guyger came home from work unexpectedly to find the apartment door slightly open and victim Botham Jean sitting in the darkened apartment. Totally surprised and confused, Officer Guyger, allegedly fearing that Jean was a burglar who might kill her, drew her weapon and shot him. He died from his wound later in a hospital. Thirteen months later, Officer Guyger was convicted of murder and sentenced to ten years in prison.
The apartment in question was not Officer Guyger's, but Mr. Jean's identical one on the floor above, which she mistook for hers. It was an honest mistake!
On April 11, 2021, police in Brooklyn, Minnesota, stopped a white 2011 Buick LaCrosse, driven by Daunte Wright, that had an expired registration tag. They also noticed an air freshener hanging from the car's rearview mirror, a violation of Minnesota law. Having stopped him for reasonable cause, officers ran Wright's name through a police database and learned that he had an open arrest warrant for failure to appear in court on previous charges of possessing a firearm without a permit and fleeing from Minneapolis police. Based on that information, police attempted to arrest him. Mr. Wright resisted arrest and got back into the car. One of the officers, veteran field training officer Kimberly Potter, warned him, "I'll tase you!" and then yelled, "Taser! Taser! Taser!" She fired one shot with her service weapon instead of her taser. Mortally wounded, Mr. Wright drove less than a tenth of a mile and collided with another vehicle. He was pronounced dead on the scene.
Officer Potter was arrested, booked into jail, and released a few hours later after posting a $100,000 bail bond. She was subsequently tried for first-degree manslaughter and second-degree manslaughter. After deliberating for 27 hours over four days, the jury found Officer Potter guilty of both counts on December 23, 2021. She was immediately remanded into custody and held without bail pending sentencing.
Officer Potter claimed that she had erroneously drawn her service weapon instead of the taser. There have been fifteen known instances previously when a suspect was shot instead of tasered under similar circumstances. It was an honest mistake!
On February 18, 2022, Officer Potter was sentenced to two years in prison and eight months of supervised release. Minnesota law allows release for good behavior after two-thirds of the sentence is served. Judge Ragina M. Chu, noting the obvious mistake and lack of malice, stated that it was "one of the saddest cases I've had on my 20 years on the bench."
Officer Potter petitioned the Minnesota Board of Pardons to have her sentence commuted, but the board declined to consider the commutation. On April 24, 2023, after serving 16 months of her two-year sentence, she was released before dawn at 4:00 a.m. to avoid potential protests and hreats directed at her and her family. She remained on supervised release for the remaining third of her sentence.
I was reminded of all this recently when I ordered, paid for, and received a receipt for an order of unsweet iced tea at a McDonald's restaurant and actually received instead an order of tea loaded with sugar! This has happened several times before at that same restaurant! As before, I told the employee who gave me the wrong order that I thought that much sugar might kill a diabetic! Someone with COVID loss of taste symptoms might not be able to tell the difference She replied, "It was an honest mistake."
Her reply suggests to me that McDonald's employees seem to think that "It was an honest mistake" is some kind of excuse for not doing what they are being paid to do, which, among other things, is to provide the customer what he ordered. One wonders what their reaction would be if an "honest mistake" made their restaurant run out of money so that it was impossible for it to pay them next payday. McDonald's employees are, in fact, professional food service personnel, whether they like or not. They should act like it, quit, or be fired! An "honest mistake" is no more a valid excuse for not doing one's job at McDonald's than it is on the Brooklyn police force, the Dallas police, at the controls of a giant airliner or at a radar console at the control tower.
Working for McDonald's is, in fact, a great opportunity, especially for those whose native abilities are challenged by a requirement to draw tea from the proper one of two clearly marked containers! McDonald's accepts untrained personnel who may not ever have had any job experience doing anything right and trains them in the basics of employment. It provides not only a reasonable income but also valuable intangible benefits as well. McDonald's prepares them for greater things, using the skills they learned as McDonald's employees. It is a disservice to them as well as their customers for the employees to be allowed to do their jobs poorly or not at all! Hopefully, neither McDonald's management nor their employees will find out what is like to be found responsible for killing somebody because they didn't do what they were supposed to do.
One of the benefits that should rightfully accrue to being a McDonald's employee is to be a member of an internationally respected food service organization. By allowing substandard work, management deprives the employee the professional training to which he is entitled, the pride that should come from being a valued member of the McDonald's family, and the satisfaction of a job well done. Both they and the customers deserve better!
The morning before I posted this, I ordered a burrito, an apple pie, and an unsweet iced tea with light ice. What I got was a burrito with the waxed paper outside and inside the tortilla wrap, an apple fritter, and iced tea in a cup filled to within an inch of the top with ice.
The tea was unsweet, though.