‘I ate there.’ Dozens reach out to police about tainted food at Leawood Hereford House
A customer of the Hereford House in Leawood voiced her frustrations Wednesday after being unable to get answers from police and health officials about possibly eating contaminated food last week.
The woman learned Tuesday evening that the Johnson County District Attorney charged a former steakhouse restaurant worker with contaminating food between March 26 and April 25. Leawood police asked anyone who fell ill after eating at the restaurant to contact them at tips@leawood.org or 913-266-0696.
After a sleepless night, the woman called police Wednesday morning and was told someone would call back. As the hours passed, her concern grew, and she contacted the Johnson County health department, the restaurant, the district attorney’s office and police administration, who all referred her back to the number police provided.
“Oh my goodness, on a scale of one to 10, it’s over a 10,” the Olathe woman, who declined to be identified because of concerns for her safety, said of her frustration.
“I do know for a fact that I ate there — I fit the timeline,” she said, noting that it had been around six hours since she first called the police and she still hadn’t heard from them.
Similar to food poisoning
Prosecutors announced Tuesday that they had charged 21-year-old Jace Christian Hanson of Kansas City with one felony count of unlawfully adulterating or contaminating food at the restaurant at 5001 Town Center Drive in Leawood’s Town Center Plaza.
Prosecutors haven’t said how Hanson allegedly contaminated the food. District Attorney Stephen Howe told KCTV5 and FOX4 that the concern is that bodily fluids were used to alter the food.
Hanson, a part-time employee who worked at the restaurant for less than a month, remained in Johnson County jail on a $100,000 bond.
As of Wednesday morning, more than 50 people had contacted police by either phone or email saying they had eaten at the restaurant during the period in question, said Capt. Brad Robbins with the Leawood Police Department.
“We’re getting back to people as quickly as we can,” said Robbins, who added they’d received dozens of calls and emails.
Not everyone claimed to have fallen ill; some indicated that they only had questions, Robbins said. Police were responding to everyone who called in, which was part of the reason for the delay.
Police had been in contact with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the Johnson County Health Department, who indicated that the type of illnesses that people would have experienced would have been gastric distress similar to food poisoning, including upset stomachs and other gastrointestinal issues.
“That’s something that comes and goes fairly quickly, not any kind of lasting event,” Robbins said. He declined to go into further details of the investigation, saying the case had been handed over to the district attorney’s office.
Because of the number of calls, people should give police at least 24 hours to get back to them, Robbins said. He said it does take time for detectives to respond to each person and interview them to gather their basic information and see what happened to them.
Police are still working to determine how many people were impacted by the alleged crime.
“This is obviously a month-long period that this subject was working at the Hereford House, so there are likely thousands of people who have eaten at this particular restaurant,” Robbins said. “Those who may have experienced some incident and have called in, it’s going to take us more than just an hour or two to get to them.”
