Culture

Everyone’s Making Fun Of ‘Officer Karen’, The Cop Who Cried Over Her McMuffin Being Late

All this over a damn egg McMuffin.

by Michelle Rennex  18 June 2020
officer karen

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In the last few weeks we’ve seen a rise in Karens popping up all over social media.

Just a few days ago we saw California Karen try to call the police on an Asian man stencilling “Black Lives Matter” on his own wall. Before that, we witnessed Central Park Karen lose her job and dog as a result of falsely reporting an innocent black birdwatcher to the police.

Now, however, we have finally reached the final Karen boss: Officer Karen.

As scary as it sounds, Officer Karen is a cop who displayed extreme Karen tendencies in a now-viral video. Originally posted to her personal Facebook page, 41-year-old Deputy Stacy Talbert of the McIntosh County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia recorded the video to express her concern in, and heartbreak over, having to wait a little longer for her McDonald’s breakfast order.

“Please share because no one should feel like this,” Deputy Talbert wrote. “Law enforcement or not, this is truly how we feel.”

In the video, Officer Karen cries as she tells the harrowing story of having to wait for her McMuffin meal at six in the morning.

After ordering her food and coffee via the app “so that people don’t pay for [her] stuff”, Deputy Talbert recounted how she had to pull into a waiting bay as her order wasn’t ready yet — a pretty normal experience for literally anyone who has ever gone through a McDonald’s drive-thru.

“I’m waiting and I’m waiting and I’m waiting… and they ask me to pull up because my foods not ready” Officer Karen said. “I mean, I hadn’t eaten… in a while so I was kinda hungry, and I’m still waiting and I’m still waiting… and a girl comes out with my coffee and just the coffee.”

“So I told her ‘don’t bother with the food because right now I’m too nervous to take it’,” Officer Karen tearfully continued. “It doesn’t matter how many hours I’ve been up. It doesn’t matter what I’ve done for anyone. Right now I’m too nervous to take a meal from McDonald’s because I can’t see it being made.”

The cop with then asked for people to give officers “a break” because she “doesn’t know how much more [she] can take”.

“I’ve been in this for 15 years and I have never ever had such anxiety about waiting for McDonald’s drive-thru food,” Deputy Talbert concluded. “So just have a heart. If you see an officer, just tell them ‘thank you’ because I don’t hear thank you enough anymore.”

The bonkers video was shared to Twitter by ‘Ann’ — a pro-Trump, pro life and “constitutional conservative independent” American woman — who urged America to do better by their police officers. However, most of the 14 million people who have watched the clip in the last 24 hours just found Deputy Stacy’s entitlement and attitude appalling.

People were instantly confused over how the officer managed to somehow create a whole conspiracy theory over her McDonald’s order being slightly delayed.

For anyone who has ever ordered drive-thru fast food before, having to pull to a bay to wait for your food to be freshly cooked is a very common thing. These minimum wage workers forgetting or screwing up your order when it gets busy is also a very common thing. And the idea that you “can’t see the workers cooking the food” through waiting bays or service windows is also, you guessed it, a very common thing.

Plus, seeing people — like Donald Trump Jr. — sympathise with a cop having a cry over some underpaid McDonald’s workers taking extra time to cook a McMuffin, while innocent black men, women and children are literally getting murdered, is a truly wild concept.

Beyond this, most just couldn’t fathom how someone who got so emotional and anxious over a messed up breakfast order could even be in a role that gave them access to a gun.

It is likely that Deputy Stacy Talbert’s anxiety over her fast food order stemmed from the false rumour circulating earlier this week that three NYPD officers were poisoned through Shake Shack milkshakes.

However, it’s these type of assumptions that lead to overreactions and subsequent murders while on duty. Despite not having seen the McDonald’s workers tampering with her food, Officer Karen immediately assumed that this was the case as she was “too nervous” to take the meal.

Sadly, it’s these assumptions that are an all too familiar story with trigger-happy police officers, who often shoot innocent black men in fear of what they feel “could be” a gun. In the late Stephon Clark’s case, officers assumed his iPhone was a gun. For the now-deceased Amadou Diallo, officers assumed his wallet was a firearm.

Since the video went viral, the owners of the McDonald’s location featured denied targeting Deputy Stacy Talbert with longer wait times.

“We have been in contact with this officer to apologise for this unsatisfactory experience [a longer than usual wait time and did not receive her full order right away] and let her know that we would love to correct the inaccurate order when she has time,” Gary and Jill Stanberry told Newsweek. “We are happy to report that the officer was never denied service and also shared positive feedback on the employee with whom she interacted.”

Over on her personal Facebook page, Deputy Stacy Talbert also released her own statement regarding the reaction to her video, thanking those who supported her.

“I spoke to many former and current law enforcement friends that saw the support and regained hope,” she wrote. “We will continue to press forward and do the best we can for our respective communities.”