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Man Arrested for Refusing to Show Drivers License
NMerriam writes "Michael Righi was arrested in Ohio over the weekend after refusing to show his receipt when leaving Circuit City. When the manger and 'loss prevention' employee physically prevented the vehicle he was a passenger in from leaving the parking lot, he called the police, who arrived, searched his bag and found he hadn't stolen anything. The officer then asked for Michael's driver's license, which he declined to provide since he wasn't operating a motor vehicle. The officer then arrested him, and upon finding out Michael was legally right about not having to provide a license, went ahead and charged him with 'obstructing official business' anyways."
If you're going to argue against this guy, do yourself a favor: Don't argue the store was within their rights to ask for the receipt. Nobody's arguing with that, and you're a moron who can't fucking read if you think they are. Instead you need to make a case for why they were right to prevent him from leaving, because that, and only that, is what is being contended here.
This was a little beyond a mistake. This was a deliberate violation of civil rights, in the face of multiple laws to the contrary of the officers actions. Pretty much the biggest reason we have a court system, frankly.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
usually because the ones that caused the problem in the first place (in this case CC and the police) will usually not apologize or admit any kind of wrongdoing. Leaving the court system the only option in teaching them that it is not acceptable behavour.
You might want to read his blog. He IS such a person.
Oh, they chose the wrong man to mess with..
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
This is incorrect. While they are perfectly within their rights to REQUEST to see the contents of your bag, you are within your rights to REFUSE that request.
The fact that it is their store means nothing. Think of it this way. Do you have the right to search any bags or packages that someone brings into your home? No. You can ask, and then you can ask that they leave if they refuse to show you, but beyond that, nothing.
Also, refusal to allow one's person or possessions to be search cannot be used as just cause for a search. So says the Supreme Court.
It is failing, but because it's failing gradually and has taken several lifetimes to get this way, each generation grows up used to "the way things are" (Social Security vote-buying, drug asset forfeiture laws that don't require an arrest or for charges to be brought, warrentless domestic surveillance) and may lament the freedoms lost but do not see the inevitability of the police state. B
Because of the difficulty of a massive takeover and the resistence and uprisings it would cause, freedom is almost never taken away all at once. Instead, it's eroded gradually, little bit by little tiny bit (always "for the children", "for your safety", "to stop terrorists", "to fight [some] drugs"), which suits the statists because it is never given back, making the resulting police state inevitable.
What you're really dealing with here is an almost religious, always unstated belief that the artificial construct of the nation, as personified by state power, is like a massive all-powerful organism and the individuals of which it is composed are akin to cells in the body in the sense that any one of them is expendable and insignificant and they only matter in large numbers. This mentality has become deeply established in the USA, which is why in the news, no crime ever happens to a person - it happens to a Black person, or a White person, or an Asian person, or a woman, or a senior citizen, etc because the group identity has become more significant than the individual identity. This is useful for the goal of the statists, since each group has perceived collective interests in large enough numbers to influence the politics of the State. This is how you dehumanize people and turn them into a label, because it's no longer the mind, body, and soul of an individual who has hopes and dreams and feels pain like you do but just another faceless organization that can only be understood as an abstraction.
Of course you also need to have a war of some kind going on to keep the public in a fearful state, since this is the best way to discourage rational thought and promote a groupthink "pack animal" situation. War on poverty, war on (some) drugs, war on crime, war on terror, war on obesity, etc. are how you get around that pesky Bill of Rights. For example, consider the 4th Amendment, which states:
Because of the War on (some) Drugs, it is now considered acceptable for the police to seize property without bothering to arrest anyone or charge them with any crime (reference). Thanks to the War on Terror, it is now considered acceptable for the feds to intercept communications and execute wiretaps without all that hassle of demonstrating probable cause and obtaining a warrant. Both of these practices, along with the entire idea of fighting an undeclared "war" against a battle tactic (terrorism is a particularly despicable form of guerilla warfare), would have been considered absolutely absurd things that would never happen here 100
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
"I must say I have a hard time sympathizing here. This falls under the heading of something my old boss used to refer to as "you'd be right, but you'd be dead"."
Er, except he's right and he isn't dead! If this **isn't** a big deal then it never would have resulted in his unlawful detention and arrest.
Now this clearly does not rise to the importance of fighting for suffrage and civil rights, but your boss would have dismissed those fights as well. He would have told Rosa Parks that she'd be right but she'd be dead! That or you are miss representing your boss's opinion...
In the UK, the police advise that shop staff follow "SCONE" or "SCOPE" before approaching a suspect:
S - See the suspect take goods
C - Conceal the goods
O - Continuously Observe the suspect (to ensure they don't drop or discard the goods)
P/N - Not Pay
E - Attempt to exit
Generally, if you're at an exit and someone tries to prevent you leaving, it's kidnapping (holding you against your will).
My wife is a special officer and two of my good friends are full-timers. They would kick the arse of any shop staff that tried to hold a customer without having observed scope/scone.
Sad to see something this clueless get modded up as insightful. The simple truth is that you do not have a right to search me simply because I am on your property. You can ask to. I can refuse. If I refuse, it's fully within your right to ask that I leave, and if I don't, you can call the cops and have me arrested or removed. However, you at no time have a legal right to search me.
This guy's the limit!
Well, personally, I'm glad some people are willing to be the designated dick and stand guard against the gradual erosion of our rights.
It's always easier to just go to the back of the bus, and it's always easier to wait until you're actually being forced into the showers before objecting.
Ignoring the differences in California and Ohio statutes, probable cause in a shoplifting case requires a good deal more than "he wouldn't show me a receipt." By and large, in order to detain someone on suspicion of shoplifting you need to see them:
And you have to keep them under continual observation the whole time.
As you mentioned, Mr. Righi's refusal to suck corporate cock is not probable cause.
Having read TFA, it looks to me like the security guard and store manager have unlawfully detained not just Mr. Righi, but his entire family: By blocking the car from moving, the manager and guard trapped his father and father's wife, his brother and two sisters. That's five crimes -- possibly felonies -- committed by the store, on top of whatever crimes they committed against their customer.
If Mr. Righi and his family decide to pursue this, I think the perpetrators and their employers will be begging for the chance to apologize and settle.
This is not my sandwich.