I have seen the future.

Because they have no right to ask him.

No, really, it's that simple. They don't have the right to stop you, and the police don't have the right to arrest you, until they have a reasonable expectation that you've done something wrong. The police *cannot* do what this cop did, because doing so is a clear violation of your rights.

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kalieris.livejournal.com

Wow, this has made me amazingly, irrationally angry (not you, but the guy's situation and the reasoning behind it), which has nothing to do with rights and everything to do with "daddy issues." Must go think on this a bit more.

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goaltender.livejournal.com

That's not true. They can ask anything they want. They can also deny service to anyone they want. Ever see the "No shirt, no shoes, no service" sign? Is it against the law to not wear shoes? No. Can a business deny you service for not wearing shoes? Yes. And saying the manager/employee can't *ask* to look in your bag, tongue punch your dirt star, or anything else is an infringement on their freedom of speech. Sucks how that works both ways, eh?

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jerril

You have the right to refuse service. You do not have the right to unlawfully detain a customer who (100% legally I add) said "No" to your request to violate his rights.

It's one thing to post someone at the way in to tell everyone "We will not sell you anything unless you agree to let us check your receipt." Costco has you sign a contract to that effect when you get a membership card. Same deal with Sams Club.

However, that's not what they're doing.

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What if there's a sign posted that says "We reserve the right to check all packages" then?

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Good question. However, there isn't. At Circuit City, the bit about them wanting to check packages is on the receipt, which you can only receive AFTER having completed your transaction, and which is an unenforceable addition of a previously nonexistent condition of sale to an already completed purchase - exactly the same as, after I sell you a car and we're done, I write on the receipt that you're also required to give me a blowjob.

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Really? At every Circuit City there's no sign like that? You can say that with total confidence?

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goaltender.livejournal.com

O.k., I can't argue that they can't unlawfully detain you, which the cop might have done, but Circuit City did not. He admits that he got out of the car and walked over to the sidewalk to call the cops. Why didn't he just keep walking? He wasn't restrained. He could have left. He also admits that he knew this is what would happen as a result of not showing his receipt. He brought this on himself. We can discuss the specific legalities here all day, and there may be reason to be alarmed, but in the end this situation happened as a result of Michael Righi's decisions. I can't feel sorry for this guy and I kinda hope he gets screwed.

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Uh, did you even read the article?

He got in the car and the manager ran in front of it and wouldn't let it move. He opened the door to ask what the problem was and the manager stepped between it and the body of the car, physically preventing him from closing it and, in fact, holding it open against his will. Moving the car forward would hit the man standing in front. Moving the car backward would hit the manager with the car door. Moving the car sideways would require a kind of car I don't think he had.

He wasn't restrained. He could have left.

Absolutely, he could have, by ramming either the employee or the manager with his car, or by abandoning his car. Two of those are crimes on his part, the third involves the store employees depriving him, temporarily or absolutely, without colour of right, of the use of his vehicle.

Which, if you didn't catch the legalese, is the precise definition of "theft".

This is, in fact, a textbook case of false imprisonment.

I kinda hope he gets screwed.

Good for you. The store violated his rights and committed a crime in doing so. The police officer violated his rights and committed a crime in doing so. I'm glad you feel that he shouldn't have any kind of defense against unlawful search and seizure by private companies and he should be required to present identification papers without reason at all, just because you don't like his attitude.

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goaltender.livejournal.com

Did I read the article?

Of course, that’s how I know he got past these bionic employees and walked to the sidewalk. I still say he could have left – without running anyone down. Witch hunt, anyone?

Bravo with the journal, by the way. If anything, perhaps we can agree that it is good that we are all discussing these issues?

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Well, yeah, he COULD have left. And left his father and siblings stranded in the parking lot. IF the employees didn't then go over and grab him to physically detain him, possibly causing harm... which if they'd already been blocking the car like that AND physically keeping him from getting back in the car... I wouldn't have bet money against it, ya know?

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fearmeforiampink

Yep. The one thing that was a reasonable demand was the cop looking in his bag to see if he'd stolen anything, as the cop has that right, whereas the store doesn't.

All the other "You have to do this" statements are wrong.

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Actually, the cop does *not* have the right to look in his bag to see if he's stolen something, unless the store employee says that he's accusing the guy of a crime.

However, the cop is fully within his rights to *ask* to see the bag and the receipt as the fastest way of settling the issue, which is what happened.

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unknownpoltroon.livejournal.com

"The one thing that was a reasonable demand was the cop looking in his bag to see if he'd stolen anything, as the cop has that right, whereas the store doesn't.
"

That might be arguable. He needs probable cause, and xercising your 4th amendment right does not give probable cause.

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fearmeforiampink

Fair enough, I don't know the American legal system at all, so I'll bow to those that do.

What I was thinking/trying to get at though, is that that one was a more reasonable request, and while the shop guy might not have said as much, were the cop to ask I'm sure that the shop guy would say "I think he's stealing something". Whereas the rest of the stuff is people demanding stuff that they have no even near claim on.

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Funny thing about US law and shoplifting, though: Unless you're the witness or you have tapes, you are trained again and again to *not* accuse anyone of anything. If you tell the cop "I think he stole something", you've just opened up the store to liability if you're wrong.

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fearmeforiampink

Fair enough. Is there any reasonable way that they can get to check whether someone's got something they've nabbed on them without direct evidence? Also, what would count? e.g. seeing someone running out at high speed, the tag detectors at the door going off, or whatever?

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In addition to what she said, once you've been given a receipt and picked up your bags, the sale is complete. Those things are yours - and now this other employee is asking if they can examine your property.

That, you have every right to refuse, and once you refuse they can either:
A) let you go freely
or
B) detain you using a "citizen's arrest" until they call the cops to charge you with theft, like they do with anyone they catch shoplifting.

There is no third option. Period. Either way, they can ban you from the store and refuse you service in the future, but they can't stop you on the way out unless you allow them to, or they have reasonable belief that you've stolen something *and* are willing to call the cops over it and face the consequences of the unlawful imprisonment and filing a false police report charges if they did so without what the cops call a reasonable suspicion.

But yes, you're right, the store *can* ask you to show them your bag and the cops *can* ask you to show ID. What they can't do is stop you if you refuse either request, which both the store employee *and* the cop did in this case.

Meaning, assuming the facts of the case happened as the writer says they did, he's 100% in the right and they're 100% in the wrong.

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sivi-volk.livejournal.com

A "citizen's arrest" can only be done if you view a person committing an indictable offense. If you don't see them in the act, or the crime is only a summary offense, and you try to detain them, you have committed an offense yourself.

In this case, unless the item they saw him take but didn't actually see him take was worth $5000 or more, they had no right to use a citizen's arrest.

That's Canadian law, but my law teacher told us it's pretty similar in most states.

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Theft under $5000 is not a summary offense.

And while American law *does* tend to be similar, store dicks do have the right to stop you if they saw you take something or if a witness says they saw you take something, because that's theft.

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sivi-volk.livejournal.com

Looking at people posting sections of Ohio law, the store only has a right to detain or search you if:

1. The person enters the store without the item on their person
2. The person is observed selecting the item in the store
3. The person in observed concealing the item in the store
4. The person must be continuously observed by an employee so that they know the location of the item and know the person has not discarded the item
5. The person must fail to pay for the item and attempt to exit the store

Even then, some stores (again, Target) state that if the person becomes confrontational the employees should allow them to leave and get a description and or license plate number rather than attempt to detain the person.

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Yay! I got it right!

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Cop? Wrong. Store? No so much.

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Store, absolutely wrong. They have every right to ask you to show your receipt and every right to ban you from shopping there in the future if you refuse.

They do *not* have the right to physically restrain you unless they're calling the cops themselves because they want to have you arrested for shoplifting, and making *that* charge requires probable cause.

Refusing to submit to a search is not probable cause to conduct a search, even *if* the person asking is a cop, which the store people most certainly are not.

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You know what? Fuck this guy. He's a smug asshole and I couldn't give two shits less what happens to him. As soon as I got to the "Other than putting my family through a little scare I don’t regret anything that happened today" part, he lost my sympathy. You know why? Because I pointless little action like showing someone a receipt (GASP! THE FUCKING INVASION OF PRIVACY!!!!) is less important to him than his family. You want to be Mr. Fight the Fucking Power, do it on your own time. You want to not show someone a little piece of paper that simply verifies what you've just been video taped and UPC-scanned buying? Do it on your own time. Fuck him. His pathetic point was more important than his family.

Yes I still think the cop is out of line, incorrect, and illegally arresting him, but he's still a selfish, smug prick.

(deleted comment)

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Dammit. Responded to the poorly edited one...

There's really no one worth lining up with here is all I'm trying to say. The store shouldn't have reacted this way, especially physically blocking him leaving (assuming, of course, that there wasn't a sign announcing the policy when he entered), the cop shouldn't have violated his Constitutional rights against search and seizure, and he should have chose his battles and battleground better.

(deleted comment)

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If that was his motivation, then you're absolutely right.

I'm going to go with the cop as the biggest jackass though.

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Aside from what others have pointed out about even dicks having the same right as everyone else under law... it also depends on what's more important to you (or to him, or whatever): your family never getting a temporary scare like that, or your family seeing you practice what you preach, and set the example of not simply doing something which you think is wrong.

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I find it difficult to look at someone complaining about their privacy when they've been filmed picking their purchases with a video camera and were fine with it then used a credit card to purchase the items and were also fine with it. If this guy was so worried about his privacy, why didn't he shop in some Mom and Pop type store without security cameras and pay in cash? I really don't see how showing someone a receipt that confirms everything they already know from cameras and the record of your purchase is somehow a violation of your rights.

Even if he decided that all of this was worth it, the fact that his siblings were in the back crying and even that didn't sway him from his course says a lot about him. I mean, happy birthday sis, how about a good cry in the back seat? Don't worry, years from now you'll understand why I thought it was worth it to put you through a scare like this on your birthday over a receipt.

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Just because you have to put up with some invasion of your privacy when you shop at just about everywhere (even Mom and Pop stores), that doesn't mean you have to totally strip away every bit of it at the store's whim.

And more to the point, I don't recall him saying it was about privacy at all (although I could be wrong, I did read the article, but it was a day ago now). It's about rights, and about NOT being hassled by any given goon at a store for whatever reason and being expected to just kowtow to the Almighty Authority, just because.

As for the kids... yeah, I do feel bad for them, and he does say it was the one thing about the day he regrets, which shows that he's not totally heartless about that. But I'd still say that it's a valid viewpoint to take that a temporary scare, even if it makes them cry, is worth it if you're going to be showing them how to live up to their ideals rather than just mindlessly capitulate to Big Brother, or what have you. I'm not saying the guy's a total saint or whatever, but just not the big flaming asshole who deserves everything he got, either.

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We're just going to have to disagree on this.

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Agreed.

Er... you know what I mean.

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sivi-volk.livejournal.com

I'm kinda distressed by people's understanding of the laws involved here. Hell, the store employees most likely acted against store policy (I'm assuming CC has policies similar to Target's, which I've spent some time reading through), let alone the law.

This is the sort of case civil rights lawyers salivate over.

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desdenova.livejournal.com

Man, I hate that receipt-checking bullshit. Stores that assume customers are thieves unless they prove otherwise deserve to lose all their business to amazon.com!

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Speaking as a former employee, people who feel like making a stand against showing a receipt at a store yet have no compunctions about ordering from Amazon.com make me sad.

(deleted comment)

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Troll? How am I a troll because I made a qualified comparison completely bereft of baiting of any type? Nothing I said in that sentence was said with an iota of snark, sarcasm, or anything else bordering on trolldom. If I'd wanted to troll, I certainly could have come up with a better reaction than "sad" and a far more acidic reply. Believe me, I've got enough bile toward that place that if I wanted to troll, you and everyone else would know it.

In any case, having worked there and knowing what the company treats its employees like, showing a receipt to someone is unbelievably tame in comparison.

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While I wouldn't call you a troll, you've also got to realize that while just about anyone can know their general rights, and know that it's bad to just automatically kowtow to authority, not everyone knows what goes on within amazon.com's inner employee structure thingy.

(Man, I should probably get some sleep.)

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Which is why I just said it made me sad and left it at that. I didn't say the poster was defective or even imply anything of the sort. It was not inflammatory in any way at all, least of all inflammatory for its own sake (which, last I checked, is the hallmark of the troll). I certainly could have been inflammatory, but that would have made me a dick, not a troll. If I did go down that path, it would have been inflammatory with a perfectly good reason (ie, I hate that place) but not logical in the least in the context (like you said, they have no idea what goes on there).

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rimrunner.livejournal.com

I'm not sure the two directly correlate. For all we know, it sucks to work at Circuit City, too.

(I too am a former Amazon employee.)

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