McDonald’s worker spit on cop’s burger, rubbed it on the floor, California DA says
A McDonald’s worker in California’s Central Valley is accused of rubbing a cop’s food on the floor and spitting on it in an incident captured on surveillance camera, according to authorities.
Tatyana Hargrove, a 21-year-old employee at the Bakersfield fast food restaurant, was arrested on felony charges last month after managers reviewed surveillance video and learned a worker had “intentionally tampered with food that was served to a Bakersfield Police Department Officer on November 12,” the Kern County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Nov. 18.
The Kern County District Attorney’s Office charged Hargrove on Tuesday with a felony count of attempting to mingle substances with food or drink and a misdemeanor count of battery, and she’s set to appear in court on Dec. 18, KGET reports.
Prosecutors “claimed Hargrove was seen on videotape rubbing a hamburger on the floor and spitting on it before serving it to the officer,” 23ABC reports.
The alleged food tampering at the restaurant on Rosedale Highway came just weeks after Hargrove lost a lawsuit in October alleging excessive use of force during an earlier encounter with police, according to The Bakersfield Californian.
The Californian reported that Hargrove “was at the center of a high-profile dispute with the BPD in 2017, after two police officers mistook her for a male suspect and she was bitten by a police dog. Hargrove said at the time she had been thrown to the ground and punched in the face by the officers. The officers’ accounts differed from Hargrove, providing a less confrontational version of the encounter. The BPD eventually called the encounter a case of mistaken identity while the Bakersfield chapter of the NAACP said it was racially motivated.”
Bakersfield Police Department Chief Lyle Martin apologized to Hargrove following the mistaken arrest and Hargrove said she accepted the apology, KBAK reported.
Hargrove sued the city in federal court alleging a civil rights violation, but a jury found police “blameless and ruled in favor of the City of Bakersfield” on Oct. 18, according to KGET.
This story was originally published December 3, 2019 at 5:57 PM with the headline "McDonald’s worker spit on cop’s burger, rubbed it on the floor, California DA says."
