CHICAGO: A prankster posed as a fire fighter and tricked employees at a Burger King outlet in Minnesota into smashing all the windows in fear of a gas leak, the third such incident to hit the fast food chain in the US in about two months.
A prankster, posing as a fire department official, called the Burger King outlet in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, and said there was a gas leak in the building and that unless the windows were smashed, a gas buildup would cause an explosion.
To the frantic manager of the Burger King outlet, the choice was to act fast or face disaster. So the manager and Burger King employees evacuated the restaurant and started smashing ground floor windows. Every single one of them.
Coon Rapids police received a call on Friday, with the caller reporting that people were breaking the windows of the Burger King, Sgt Rick Boone said. "Officers arrived and found that the manager and employees of the Burger King were smashing out the windows," Boone was quoted as saying by the Star Tribune.
"The manager explained they'd received a phone call from a male who identified himself as a fireman who said there were dangerous levels of gas in the building and they had to break out all the windows to keep the building from blowing up," he said.
"The manager was frantic and actually believed the building was going to blow," he added. Then the officers explained there was no emergency. One employee suffered a minor cut during the window- shattering, police said. No one else was hurt.
Coon Rapids police and the Anoka County Sheriff's Office are investigating the incident. Someone placed a similar call to a Burger King in Shawnee, Oklahoma, Thursday night, claiming high levels of carbon monoxide. Window damage was put at USD 10,000, KFOR-TV reported.
A similar prank at the Shawnee, Oklahoma Burger King cost that restaurant about USD 10,000. A similar call about a gas leak a Burger King in Morro Bay, California, resulted in USD 35,000 in damage in February.