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ICE agents ate at a Minnesota Mexican restaurant before arresting staff (www.the-independent.com)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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I hope the staff spat in their food

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[–] 26 points 9 months ago* (4 children)

Hypothetically, how would the police determine who on the staff accidentally added rat poison to their dish if there were no witnesses?

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Realistically, all of them would be considered guilty of the crime by simply being in the kitchen when it happened.

    A conviction hungry DA would use the same laws that apply murder charges to the guy who drove the car. If it happened, and you could have theoretically known it was going to happen, and you still participated in any conceivable way, you also legally committed the crime.

    This is one of the many ways this country persecutes black and brown people to feed the prison labor industry.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    Working in a kitchen isn't a felony though, nor is serving food normally. Now, if someone said they spit in the food and you knew about it but still served it, that could be a felony. If that 'spit' turned out to be rat poison and killed a guy, that's felony murder.

    There has to be a level of participation before felony murder happens. If you knew about something bad happening and did nothing to stop it. But, they have to be able to prove that you knew about it, or at least convince the judge/jury

    Agree with you about it being used disproportionately on non-white though, there's some fucked up felony murder charges out there.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    You're not wrong, but you're not thinking like a shithead DA.

    Rat poison was taken from the floor and added to the food of a police officer. We don't know who exactly did it, but everyone in the kitchen could reasonably have known it was happening and did nothing to stop it, and therefore is guilty of felony murder.

    Again, the DA doesn't need to be right, they just need to convince a grand jury that there's a chance they're right, then they force the accused in to a plea deal. Because these are kitchen guys, they don't make much money, so they'll be using a public defender who will likely tell them they're going to prison, and the best thing they can do is plea out.

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