Mario Tama via Getty Images
- Dairy Queen workers claim a manager forced them to eat ice cream contaminated by cleaning products.
- The mother of a teen involved in the incident told local news many targeted workers were minors.
- Kentucky police are investigating the allegations.
Police are investigating after employees at a Dairy Queen in Kentucky say they were forced to eat ice cream contaminated with cleaning solution, local outlet WKYT reported.
Angela Patton told the outlet her 17-year-old daughter was among the employees involved in the incident at the Dairy Queen, located in Campton, KY.
"They were told by the manager that whether or not they liked chocolate ice cream, they were going to taste it today," Patton told WKYT.
Patton told the outlet many of the about eight employees involved in the incident were minors, and their manager had told the group that they hadn't cleaned the ice cream machine properly, so they were served the contaminated ice cream as a punishment.
Several of them, she said, experienced burning sensations while eating the ice cream and sought medical treatment, though Business Insider could not verify her claims.
Dairy Queen and representatives for Wolfe County Sheriff's Office, the local authorities investigating the incident, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular working hours.
Elijah Banks, a deputy with Wolfe County Sheriff's Office, told WKYT that little could be shared about the ongoing investigation due to the involvement of the juveniles. However, he said Wolfe County officials are in contact with the county attorney to determine the next steps.
No charges have yet been filed.
Tainted treats and sushi terrorism
In New York, a woman was recently denied a retrial after she received a 23-year sentence for poisoning and killing her boss with a medication used for gout.
Incidents of product tampering can also result in felony charges, as in the 2019 case of a mother who allowed her young daughter to lick a tongue depressor at a medical clinic and then put it back, resulting in a felony charge that was later reduced to a misdemeanor. The woman was inspired to record a video of the incident due to an online trend of licking consumer products and putting them back for unsuspecting buyers to take home.
The trend has been around for nearly a decade. It has grown exponentially since 2015 when Ariana Grande was famously caught on camera licking a doughnut that was later sold to an unsuspecting customer — for which she faced intense backlash.
But the filthy habit has also continued into recent years, with a so-called "sushi terrorism" resulting in several arrests after videos went viral of pranksters in Japan licking utensils and soy sauce bottles and rubbing saliva on the conveyer belt.