Slashdot Mirror
Man Wins Partial Victory In Circuit City Arrest
JeremyDuffy writes "Michael Righi, the man who was arrested at Circuit City for failing to show his reciept/driver's license, has fought a moral battle against the city for almost a month now. The case has already been settled and he emerged victorious... sort of. It turns out that he's already spent almost $7500 and would have kept fighting them too, but because his family would have been dragged into it, he was forced to take a deal. They've expunged his record and dropped all charges, but he had to give up his right to sue the city to do it."
Guess it is cheaper this way, than for the city to actually admit it screwed up..
Where's the ACLU when you need 'em? I would think a case like this would be right up their alley. I know it's not as "hot" as some of the stuff they've been trying to keep to lately, but c'mon.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
...can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in to Circuit City, buying something, and refusing to show ID? My friends, they may think it's a movement.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
In the days that followed a few things changed. First, I learned that the prosecutor was more interested in protecting the city against a civil law suit than she was in silencing my speech.
And by doing so she effectively did silence you and the Brooklyn, OH police department and city will not have a blemish on their record because one of their officers acted like an uninformed dick.
It's an unfortunate situation where you still have to pay out when you are completely in the right.
"One more such victory and we will be undone."
This headline needs rewriting as "Man wins Pyrrhic Victory". $7500 worse off and he didn't even get an apology. Hell, if he'd actually been shoplifting he'd have got a smaller fine than that.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
well, sometimes the cops ARE the, as you put it, 'garbage of society'.
;(
sorry if that offends you, but cops and the whole LE racket stopped existing to 'protect and serve' decades ago
they're now their own power-force and one that intends to keep growing in power. read up on the 'dont taser me, bro!' news story if you doubt the police state we now live in.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
He didn't show the cop his ID. That's not being a jerk. He agreed to a search when he had no obligation to do so. He gave his name. He just decided to draw the line at providing his driving licence when he wasn't driving. The cop was asking way too much.
I think every city/county/state with a reasonable sized police force needs to have citizen review boards with the power to punish/fire officers. It's the ultimate solution.
It will solve many problems and make cops stop and think before doing something stupid - especially with all the news lately about abuses of power and authority.
Internal reviews are useless and don't change a thing. If some kind of "policing for police" isn't done soon, it's only going to get much worse.
To each their own I guess, but sounds like a waste of time to me and snobbish.
we now call freedom fighters 'idoits'?
the guy had balls to stand up for WHAT IS RIGHT and you criticize him for doing what is right over a few dollars (that won't matter in a couple of years)?
when we put money and personal comfort up against all other Rights of society, we are phucked, truly.
I'm proud of that guy. I would call him 'friend' if I knew him.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Don't sure us for screwing your rights over and we promise we won;t take you to court on those same made up charges. WTF?!?!?!?
He caved and basically has done nothing to prove the system wrong. he was so gung ho about not showing his licensee because it was a law and his right YET he has no spine to follow through cause his family might suffer?
News break: Your family is already suffering from it. Do you believe in what you did? Then sue the city. Oh it was all show, just wanted your 15 mins, and when push comes to shove you are a coward now? Go away.
THe money you would get would A) show the city it can;t mess around B) help your family (invest, emergancy funds, etc) and C) feed the poor lawyers.
Since he didn't actually force the city to admit any wrongdoing... all they did was drop the case. Seems to me like he wasted a lot of time and money for nothing.
Many years ago, when the web was still quiet and tiny, we had a little group of friends who promised to follow through with customer service and govenrment issues for one another. Since we all had various newsletters, writing gigs, and other media-style connections, we had the ability to contact people giving bad service via the phone and inquire to the service issues from a media perspective.
Of course it was more a joke than a reality, but as time grew, we found that hundreds of people calling businesses and police departments inquiring about "Any new information?" was a great way to get things fixed. I can recall one incident with Circuit City (of all places!) where the managers on duty received nearly 200 phone calls a day from "media inquiries" relating to a direct lie from a sales person to one of our group. It only took 2 weeks of "Any new information" for the company to back down and repair the situation, at which point there was no more news to cover.
Now I know harassment is a "crime," but why isn't there a site like phonedot.org? Instead of the slashdot effect, you can have the phonedot effect. Give it digg like capabilities so bloggers and other media contributors can vote up or down various customer service issues, and then let these thousands or hundreds of thousands of bloggers make their calls to see if there is "Any new information?" until the issue is settled.
When my previous city refused to get rid of the city sticker for vehicles, I typed up a newsletter and printed 30,000 of them to distribute. The newsletter had every phone number of every city official (home, work, cell). It only took 2 months of massive phone inquiries for the city council to end the city sticker harassment, and I think it was a net gain for those who called to inquire. Fight idiotic harassment with idiotic harassment.
Since the current administration has produced laws that make every one of us a criminal, it pretty much reduces back to being about our civil rights ';)
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
Thank you Michael Righi for attempting to stick up for everyone's rights. But unfortunately the real lesson that everyone who reads this story will learn is that you don't really have any rights, you should just shut up and comply with authority if you don't want to be punished. Be honest now, if you find yourself in a similar situation and you think back on this story, what will you really do?
The guy spent $7500 on the case and forfeited the right to pursue further legal action against the city for being wrongfully arrested, but hey at least his criminal record is clean now? His record should have been clean the whole time, so there's no victory there either...
It sounds like the city pressured his family members to get him to sign. Where were they in this story before they called him to sign? Why didn't he hold out for not sueing but having the city pay for his legal fees? Paying the small legal fees now, would have been much cheaper for the city vs. going to trial.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
I fail to see where the victory is in this. The only thing he gained was that the charges were dropped. Considering that the charges were baseless to begin with, that is not much. On the other hand, the city won by making him pay $10k to fight a baseless charge and by getting away with no punishment for the city or the officer involved. Seems to be a weak victory to me...
My roommate in college signed everything from his check card for over a year: "Check My ID", or "Bill Gates", or "Bill Clinton" and/or "Jack Meoff" or something funny along those lines. Only got caught at it a few times. LOL
Sounds to me like four wrongs don't make a right. The story here is there are four a$$holes that have nothing better to do than be pricks. If you don't want to show your receipt when you leave a store, don't shop there. If someone doesn't show their receipt, don't illegally detain them. If you are a police officer, know the law you are supposed to uphold. These four idiots deserve each other.
Yeah, because all the police are in one big power conspiracy. Jack ass.
Here is a clue: When asked to leave, leave. When the police show up and ask you to leave, leave. Don't resist arrest.
Please, do not give me some example that is way off in left field. Yes, there is a time for social disobedience, this was not it, nor was this the way to do it.
There is a reason the best forms of social disobedience is public and involve people just sitting and needing to be physical dragged away, without fighting.
I don't know if campus police at this university are university employees or not.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I haven't fully thought this out but I wonder how different these things would go if it were illegal to ever give up your rights.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
You may be asked for your receipt. You cannot be forced to show it. That's the law. The store employees should be in jail for assault and unlawful imprisonment. What the cop did was not only not allowed by law, but specifcially prohibited by state law. He belongs in prison. But instead, people like you have made it absolutely clear that he will not be punished in any way for abusing his authority.
You, personally, are what's wrong with the world today.
He probably could still sue Circuit City. They detained him with no reason to believe that he was shoplifting.
It would depend on the shoplifting laws in Ohio, of course, but he should at least ask his attorney about it.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
First, his family is more important to him than his principles. No problem with that. It's even admirable, in a way.
Second, his family's convenience is more important to them than he is. That's not admirable at all.
read up on the 'dont taser me, bro!' news story if you doubt the police state we now live in.
Oh please, that kid was a dick who was asking to get tasered by his behavior and actions. It only seems outrageous when you look at it on the surface. When you look into the background / detailed information, he had it coming. Hell, if I was there, I would have volunteered to taser the a-hole myself! That's not saying that the police handled the situation well (the entire incident was handled poorly IMHO,) but this is NOT a case of "police state" behavior. In fact, the there is a fair amount of evidence indicating that he PLANNED for that confrontation as a stunt.
The CC case is COMPLETELY different and has no similarities to the taser case AT ALL.
He isn't a freedom fighter. In fact, he lost one of his own freedoms in the process. Now if the same incident happens again, he can't sue the city.
Circuit city still asks to see your receipt, and cops still ask for you identification, and still take you to jail when you aren't being cooperative. This guy has done nothing for our freedoms, except reminded us that we have the freedom to start flame wars over unimportant stories like this.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
Well, there is the .Pdf of the legal release, FTFA.
I stole this sig from a more creative user.
...you know, wining cases against un-constitutional douchebags. They can get a little rich, after all, America is Capitalism.
Haliburton profits from destroying WMDs..I mean from stopping Saddam's nuke plans..I mean from luring Al-Quieda to Iraq, I mean they profit from bringing Iraq Democracy and Peace.
Why can't the ACLU profit from securing our rights as citizens by wining precedent-setting court cases?
Blar.
Why should this man relinquish ANY rights that he has to Circuit freaking City? What's more annoying, Circuit City systematically demanding all of its paying customers show their receipts as conditions for receiving permission to leave, or one man complaining about it?
I'm 100% sure Circuit City and Best Buy and all the other stores that have this policy are capable of thinking of a solution to shoplifting that doesn't require its customers to give up basic rights.
And that basic right is, of course, the right to leave THEIR store, that they just gave money to, without having to show some 22-year-old a list of everything you bought!
People in this country need to be more adamant about keeping our rights. It's not like the government has historically given back rights it has taken from its citizens.
I noticed you posted as an AC. The guy in the article gave his name, which (along with address and DOB) is all he was required to give.
You didn't even give THAT much and you're calling him a jerk?
How much have YOU donated to the ACLU?
They are simultaneously fighting many cases on many fronts. They only have so many people on staff, with so many hours in the day. If they are to fight more cases, they need to hire more people, which costs money.
So, they can only do as much good as they are paid to do, and they have to pick the biggest issues (like challenges to the PATRIOT act itself, over specific infringements for specific individuals).
If you want them to do more, pay them more.
The cops have no right to ask for our papers. We are citizens, not sheep. Insinuating that the man beats his wife because he refused an unlawful order from the police is beyond low.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
This is one that should have been taken to the ACLU. I wish that he would have continued with suing the city or at the least made the city pay his costs. I have been the object of police before and am now aware that police AND gov can target an individual/group and make life absolutely miserable. RIght now, it is the white house that hates the ACLU. But it should all gov. that re-thinks what they do to their citizens. After all, gov should fear us, not the other way around.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Didn't you used to make sense back on k5? What happened?
Read the blog post. The guy claims to have the resources to pay for his own defense, and more importantly, the case would establish no new legal precedent (there are already two Ohio precedents that cover this situation).
The ACLU has zero reason to waste their limited resources on this case.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Of course he can still sue Circuit City.
He should also sue the city under 42 USC 1983 for violating his civil rights. The agreement he was forced to sign, putporting to waive his right to sue the city in exchange for not being criminally prosecuted, is unconscionable and is tantamount to extortion.
No, please stop apologizing for bigots. Would you feel the same way if the white kids had hung up swastikas and some jewish kids had beaten up the ring-leader? Would those jewish kids deserve 'attempted murder' when the bigot walked out of the hospitol hours later with less damage than most people involved in a car crash?
Blar.
If there is a jackass, it's Konath who apparently is a tool as he advocates caving-in to the "surrender your civil rights for cheap merchandise" crowd. Civil rights were hard-won by our ancestors and are far more important than big-box stores anti-shrinkage policies.
They dropped the charges, after $7000.00 in fees, headaches for his parents and a waste of civil resources in a DA, judge and officer.
And what did he end up doing? He admitted the officer did nothing wrong (by virtue of signing his agreement, he admits this) and a lawyer made some money off of him. Now he's parading around like he's a champion. He's not. He's a loser.
The cop and all his buddies are probably laughing about this one and they all clearly know his name, car, etc. He will catch no breaks with law enforcement anywhere around that place. The courts know he's a trouble maker and he won't catch any breaks with them. There's quite a few agencies waiting to nail him.
His family was put through all types of stress and duress and were desperate enough to call him late at night and tell him to stop being a jerk. His family is likely embarrassed their son and brother is a borderline lunatic obsessed with unimportant civil law.
I sympathize with the kid who was tazered. The police used unneeded force to punish someone when it isn't the cops jobs to punish people. This guy though got what he deserved: A $7000.00 bill, lots of wasted time, stressed out and humiliated family and a fat target on his ass for cops and courts to nail one day.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
And what lesson did he/you learn from that?
Ya know, I had in my head that this guy was some sort of a punk just looking for attention or money. Having read his blog about the case, I must admit that I am thoroughly impressed with this man and his principaled stand. I was blown away by the calm but strong tone of his wrap up, and his desire to put his family first, in the end. For this right winger, this man is everything that there is to be admired about the left wing, and the United States is better off for his citizen ship.
This is my sig.
It's great to yell and scream about your rights.
It's great to be able to have the ready cash to spend to help defend your rights when they're infringed upon.
Unfortunately, there are other pain-points that can be hit by authorities to make you comply with their wishes.
Lengthy court battles are the root of it. Sure, YOU may not mind taking all that time off work, and spending all that money.
But what about the people you have to drag into it (witnesses, family, etc)?
Moreover, they rely on apathy.
At the time, the anger and outrage are hot enough to barbecue whole cattle.
But, as time goes on, that anger cools. And it becomes harder and harder to keep oneself motivated.
The authorities know this. And time is on their side, ESPECIALLY since they've got the deep pockets to back it up.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This gentleman makes me proud. If it didn't cost everyone $7,500 to stand up to injustice, I guarantee there would be less injustice. I can't afford that, and I wager most others cannot either, so we tolerate the injustice because fighting it means we can't also "live."
See, this is why the bad guys will always win. Because the good guys care and have something to lose. The bad guys don't. This is how rogues operate. So, the guy "won" a tiny victory. Society lost to malignant authority.
What?
Well, he ended up donating all of the money to the ACLU of Ohio.
I applaud this man, and the newspaper article certainly backs him up (although it paints him in a poor light).
rm -rf
Checking the PDF version of the release that he uploaded, it specifically mentions that incident. It also includes some vague "anything before this" text. Likely to make sure all legal loopholes are closed. (For example, if Righi claimed that the officer had verbally threatened him with arrest the previous day.) It doesn't, however, say anything about subsequent incidents. Even if the same officer were to arrest him outside of the same Circuit City under similar circumstances in the future, this agreement wouldn't prevent him from suing the city.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
> When the police show up and ask you to leave, leave. Don't resist arrest.
And if he does resist arrest, taser him over and over. Make sure you order him to stand up, at the same time you're leaning on him, especially since the function of tasers is to make your muscles not obey you.
It's not the jackbooted thugs that bother me so much as their cheerleaders.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Who is this "Konath" person?
Our ancestors wanted to live in a society. Anti-social losers like this whiner were treated at least as bad by our ancestors as this guy was treated. There were certain minimum standards of behavior in adult civilization back then.
maybe just show your damn receipt? and get on with your day?
Why should I let myself be treated like a criminal? They have no suspicion of illegal activity. They're illegally detaining me. If I want to walk out, I am.
If you submit to receipt checking, what's next? Metal detectors? The wand? "Secondary inspection?" It only takes a small earthquake to make a major avalanche.
From the article ...
I've dealt with these scare tactics at other stores in the past including other Circuit Cities, Best Buys and Guitar Centers.
I bet he has got one of those faces that just cries "Search me".
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
I understand his argument, but I wonder if the police are allowed to ask for identification if you call them. He called the police, I wonder if that makes the circumstances any different. I understand this is to keep people from being harassed, but if you call the police out it seems reasonable that they would need to be able to document their call and know for sure whom called them out.
> Now if the same incident happens again, he can't sue the city.
He waived his right to sue the city over this particular incident. He most certainly can sue them if it happens again.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
I had a similar experience with (I think) CompUSA in Knoxville, TN a few years back. Mine was even more straightforward, though, and ended up in no hardships like this gent faced. Basically, I went in and bought _one_ thing. I even said "no thanks" to a bag. I head for the door with the receipt in one hand and the item in the other. On the way out, this woman appears out of nowhere, surprises me, and says "sir, I need to see your receipt." After a shocked step back, I say, "uh, no." I walk around her and keep going for the door. I guess she was surprised that I said no, because she didn't even follow for a few seconds. I get about half way across the parking lot before she catches up, yelling she has to see my receipt. I say, "no." She says, "why not?" I say, "I have *one* item in my hand. You can see that. I have a receipt in my other hand. You can also see that. What on earth do you think the receipt is for? Why would you need to see it to verify that it is for the one item I clearly just bought at the cash register I just left inside your store?" She says, "I need to make sure the item is on the receipt. We have problems with our cashiers ringing the wrong thing sometimes." I respond, "that is between you and your cashiers. I paid for the item I am holding. Your choices at this point are to call the police, in which case I will happily wait for their arrival. OR, I am going to get in my car and drive away." She just stood there, which I took for her choosing not to call the police, so I left. So the moral of my story is that sometimes saying "no" doesn't really cost you anything, and clearly in these cases it is the right thing to do. OH! I would also note that if everyone said "no", there would be no reasonable way for them to arrest everyone.
to 8 by 10 glossy photos ;-)
"Would those jewish kids deserve 'attempted murder' when the bigot walked out of the hospitol hours later with less damage than most people involved in a car crash"
To me a lot depends on the intent.
If they were just intending to bash someone, and that someone got bashed and didn't die, the IMO while it's still a crime it's definitely not attempted murder.
And even if that person did die, it's not attempted murder, but it's:
1) a serious crime for beating that person
2) A crime of homicide, as for what sort of homicide - that's for the courts to decide, same for mitigating circumstances
do you know what fascism is?
what kind of paranoid hysterical low iq twit mistakes fascism for a rent a cop asking for a receipt?
what the hell is wrong with you?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Cops are not lawyers, not even close. There's no reason to expect them to know all the laws, or all of your rights. Do you even know all your rights? Many cases before the SCOTUS have ended in split decisions, so that means that there exist some very smart legal minds that would have done the wrong thing. (If they had been the cop or the arrestee)
A real police state would bring everyone in for questioning at least once a year and random times in between just for questioning, just in case they had done something wrong. Yeah, that's the ticket.*
* Note for the humor impaired, yes, this is satire.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
He isn't a freedom fighter. In fact, he lost one of his own freedoms in the process. Now if the same incident happens again, he can't sue the city.
the point is, he TRIED and that's more than many of the 'comfy sit at home and don't make waves' quarterbacks..
its sad that it cost him money. that is not right and our system should be fixed so that the innocent do NOT have to foot the bill for high legal costs. I think the UK got this part right (in general) about being able to recover court/legal costs if you were found 'not guilty'.
how many of you have spent more than $7k on college? are you sure you got as much out of your life experience as this guy did?
money and value can be looked at in many ways.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Sure he could have just showed his receipt. But he wasn't obligated to. The store manager, however, could have let him walk right on out whether he showed the receipt or not, and damn well was obligated to.
freedom fighters fight.
this man said he would fight, and then settled.
dude.
I agree that stores should be able to hire someone to stand around and *ask* if they could please see your receipt, if they think this will really deter some theft for them. There's no law against asking.... BUT, by the same token, you, as a paying customer, should have every right to *ignore* that request too.
The laws on shoplifting are fairly clear, anyway. You're not allowed to do anything to a suspected shoplifter until after they walk out of the store. Even if you stand there and watch them shove something in their pocket, there's no law broken yet if they haven't left store property with the item.
So this guy was completely in the right. He paid for his item, and held a printed receipt that proved it was paid for. He had no legal requirement or obligation to produce said receipt for some store employee standing IN THE STORE.
Wouldn't normally bother with a post just to say 'good job', but since the flamers are out in force, will throw in my 2 cents.
as far as dropping the case, I think he could have fought harder, but when it comes to family, it's a tough call. Personally I would have fought on, and just played some of the same delaying tactics the DA would use to keep dad from missing his trip, etc. I shop at sam's, and when there's a long line to get out the door, and 1 60 year old blind woman taking her time to check reciepts, I walk around. I've been chased down once, and complied while on the walk, but I refuse to waste my time after I've made my purchase. As far as CC goes, that would be an interesting case, because like florida police, I carry a taser, and would use it if I am being illegally detained.
An I.T. motto in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing...
That's on shaky ground ethically speaking DR 7-105. THREATENING CRIMINAL PROSECUTION.
(A) A lawyer shall not present, participate in presenting, or threaten to present criminal charges solely to obtain an advantage in a civil matter. Whether he threatened to present the charges *solely* to gain an advantage in the civil case would be the point of argument. The prosecutor would say that it wasn't solely to gain an advantage, because it was the police officer who made the arrest, and the prosecutor just prosecutes whatever cases come to him. However, if the case is not supported by probable cause, he's not allowed to go forward. DR 7-103. PERFORMING THE DUTY OF PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OR OTHER GOVERNMENT LAWYER.
(A) A public prosecutor or other government lawyer shall not institute or cause to be instituted criminal charges when he knows or it is obvious that the charges are not supported by probable cause. I would argue that the only reason the prosecutor threatened to go forward was to get the waiver of liability in the civil case. There was no merit to this case. An officer needs some level of suspicion to search a person or to require a showing of ID. There was no level of suspicion whatsoever here. There was no merit to this criminal case... at least according to what this fellow is telling us. One thing I've learned in my practice is that sometimes people charged with crimes lie... yeah, I know, hard to imagine.
Why not cooperate? Becausethis is not nazi germany or any other fascist state. Having to provide his id, is like having to carry your papers around
That stores are the biggest problem when it comes to credit card fraud and should be sued.
He was not charged with not showing his ID. He was charged with restricting the duties of a police officer.
Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
There's no reason they need to see anything on your person or belongings as you are exiting a store. They are free to look, but not forcibly invade. The worst they should ever be able to do is ban you from the store. That's it. End of story.
If they want to actually prevent shop lifting, there are numerous other methods to employ other than a rent-a-cop and the local police (cameras, ink tags, alarm tags, environment such as lighting and obstructed views, etc). Besides, a significant portion of retail theft is by employees, not paying customers.
did you try? was it recommended that you not 'go that far'?
you were not at fault (imho, fwiw) and its highly unfair that you pay court costs to remove an erroroneous black mark on your record!
analogy: someone eggs your house and you catch them. should they not pay for their wrong-doing AND also for the cleaning of your house exterior?
the city admitted they were wrong. you should have gone for full 'zero cost' settlement such that it cost you time, only, but not an actual financial burden.
the eggers should pay, not you.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
"Example. In the state of Utah you are not allowed kegs."
Did you have them flown in? (Of course you probably live near a border, but it sounded funny in my head).
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Am I the only one that things this guy just wanted to see how he could "stick it to the man" in a some small way and be able to smirk at his little joke on the way out of the store. The phrase "chip on the shoulder" comes to mind. Is this the first time he's walked out of the store w/o showing a receipt? If not, why this time?
There is a time to stand up for fairness and justice. Raising a fuss over an issue so trivial as this is laughable. There are plenty of other, more important, issues about which one should make a stand.
Consider looking at the larger issue. Shoplifting is a major problem that increases the prices of everything we buy. --So just show them the receipt, and, perhaps, complain the next time they fail to do so.
doesn't the store have a right to stop shoplifting?
okay: you're obligated to show your receipt
SO FUCKING WHAT???
this is people's idea of fascism? this is people's ideas of eroding liberties and freedoms?
i would suggest that such people who think so have no idea what fascism really is!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Allowing the DA to decide if and when to charge cops is like having the fox in charge of the chicken coop. The DA needs the cops on his side if he is to get his job done. So he isn't going to lift a finger short of mass murder. This was proven twice in the past couple of years in Northern Virginia where cops killed 2 unarmed persons and were never charged.
so why can't you just show your receipt????
(smacks forehead)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
First off, it's anyones right to be a bigot. After reading about this story it looks like to me that many in that, both black and white, are bigots. The racial tensions there have been growing for a long time.
With that said, the racial tensions need to be ignored when looking at the current case. Someone was beaten by 6 others. That was a crime and those 6 others should be charged. Supporting the 6 who did the beating makes no sense to me. Are we saying it's okay to beat down someone? Is vigilante justice the way to go now? Does not liking a certain group of people for whatever reason give them the right to come and beat that person down?
When it comes to pastry theft, I take the cake.
if this person is not cooperating then they have something to hide.
Your post makes the baby 5th amendment cry.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Actually, it was more in protest concerning NEVER having to sign receipts at gas pumps from his check/credit card for some $40 tank of gas but having to sign a receipt or electronic sig to buy a $5 case of Raman Noodles at the grodery store... Signatures were meaningless. Clerks don't check them, and often they are not required to anyway (of if they are, they don't). So what's the point of your ID and signature anyway if they are not always used and verified?
To be honest, I completely agree with his battle over showing his ID to the police officer. Somebody has to fight against abuses of law enforcement. In particular, it's important to fight when there is a specific law (like the one in Ohio) that is designed to protect against such abuses.
However, I'm not sure I fully understand his refusal to stop and show his receipt in the first place. Circuit City is a private place of business. If you enter their store, they can pretty much ask you to do anything that isn't illegal or a direct violation of your civil rights. Before you react negatively to my opinion, however, consider that there is already a mitigating factor in place. If Circuit City asks you to do something ridiculous or irritating, word will get around people will stop patronizing them. Asking to show your receipt doesn't seem to be a violation of civil rights. People that really oppose such practices should just avoid Circuit City altogether. The problem is that shoplifting comes with a cost that all customers have to share in the form of higher prices. Businesses need some way to relieve the financial liabilities associated with shoplifting, and the RF devices are not foolproof. Having someone at least randomly check receipts seems like a reasonable way to cut losses. Many stores use this approach. If somebody has a better idea, I'd love to hear it (as would Circuit City, I'm sure).
I believe Circuit City made their error in how they approached the situation. It's OK that they followed Michael out of the store to request his receipt, but it's absolutely not OK that they impeded his departure. They should have just contacted the police if they believed he stole something. Likewise, I believe Michael was just being an attention-seeking jerk when he ignored the request to see his receipt. He was inviting confrontation, and I really don't see what he could have hoped to gain by it (other than attention). He had absolutely no consideration for the embarrassment that it would cause his family. If he really disagreed strongly with the practice of checking receipts, then he should just refuse to shop there and encourage others to avoid the place as well.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
If asking for reciepts make you mad also, here is something you can do.
The next time you are in a checkout where they check for reciepts at the door, wad it up and stick it down your pants when they give it to you. When you get to the door and they ask for it, be obvious about the fact that it is down there and retrieve it but don't unwad it. I think it is unlikely that they will take it from you and unwad it. At that point you can ask if they have any more requests and be on your merry way!
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
He was on their property when he was asked to show his receipt, but the receipt and the merchandise were his property at that point. Then a manager and an employee followed him outside the store and physically detained the car he was a passenger in.
A store has a right to protect its property and eject people from its premises. They have no rights concerning someone else's property nor their mobility. They should have written down his license plate number and let the police do the policing.
You are just plain wrong on this. Go read the original /. "article." There is no such right for the store. If they have reason to suspect you of stealing, they can search you or call the police. Entering their store and purchasing something is NOT grounds to suspect you of shoplifting. So they can ask, but not demand, that you submit to a search.
Apparently club stores, like Costco, operate under different rules, but public stores like Circuit City are as described above.
I suppose it's illegal to be a jerk now eh?
But then how about the cop and rest? Weren't they being jerks as well? They could have dropped the "Obstructing Official Business" thing, and told Righi "Look next time please just show the frigging receipt".
Who's a more dangerous to you or the rest of society? Michael Righi or cops like that cop and the current system as it is?
Say you do something that's arguably legal, and you think is reasonable but is viewed as unreasonable by others, why should you suddenly risk getting a criminal record for that?
I'm all for fewer jerks in the world. BUT yes I'm biased - after all in too many occasions I myself have been a jerk, so I still wouldn't want it to be a criminal offense.
Sure he did something unreasonable (go ahead flame him for it), but the Cops and the City went and did something even more unreasonable IMO.
To me it should have gone to court, and Righi should have won, the cop and the rest of the goons behind him should have been reprimanded and made to apologize and Righi should have been awarded X%costs + USD1 buck as damages. Where X% is less than 100% or whatever the court thinks is fair.
A police force willing to behave like this definitely does not make things safer or better.
IMO the Peelian Principles are still relevant today for the police: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_Principles
Sure, he stood up for his freedom, and the freedom of everyone who reads about the incident and realizes that they're not under any obligation to submit to search on the way out of a retail store.
He also could have picked a time and place for this that wouldn't have scared and hassled his family on Labor Day Weekend, with his whole family in the car, on his sister's birthday!
Ftom TFA:
It seems like he might have saved his loved ones a lot of stress if he'd chosen to assert his rights on his own time instead of interrupting the family reunion for it.
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
Saying: "He must have a lot of time on his hands". Translation: "I don't approve of how you spend your time."
Saying: "You've gotta pick your battles". Translation: "I've gotta pick your battles."
Talk about "snobbish".
I am not a crackpot.
The primary item on the ACLU's agenda should be bullshit precisely like this--and I don't mean the original complaint.
The idea that to end a case of asserting constitutional rights one must explicitly give up more constitutional rights--in particular, even free speech (don't say negative things about police? W-T-F? [insert In Soviet Russia jokes here]), and then to consider it a "victory?!?"--is arguably the greatest indication of how frightfully corrupt the foundations of our entire legal system are. The fact that even the local newspaper grabbed onto the inconvenient malquote and quickly rectified it to appear doubleplus ungood for the marginal victor isn't particularly heartening either...
The problem is when a beating gets you attempted 2nd degree murder and 20 years in jail, while someone pulling a shotgun on you.... gets to charge the other person with theft of said shotgun.
The problem is the disparate set of charges that are leveled when a white person commits a crime and when a black person commits a crime.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
250 years ago he probably would have been called a patriot and minuteman. You know, putting your butt on the line against tyrany? I salute this guy.
If we had more people like him today we would probably not have things like the DMCA, USA Patriot act, and warentless wiretapping. Standing up for your fundemental rights is a duty of americans.
In fact, if it happens again it will be an easier win. This time he can argue that it is not a simple mistake.
Fight Spammers!
No, while you are on their property, they are entitled to inspect stuff. If you don't want them to, don't go into the store -- their intent to inspect your bag is prominently posted at the entrance.
Now, you can refuse whatever search you find unreasonable, of course (theirs was not unreasonable, IMO). In that case they can try to prevent you from leaving their property (store, parking lot) -- see Citizen Arrest, and take all responsibility for the wrongful arrest.
Incorrect. They do not have the right to search individuals. They do have the right to ask you to leave the premesis. They're quite free to ask you to be searched or leave. They cannot, however, decide to search you after you have entered and done business there and attempt to detain you or take your possessions after you've left the premesis.
They did detain him, and his response was to call the police to be freed from unlawful arrest. (There's substantial documentation on what information is necessary to make lawful arrest for shoplifting.)
Or they can call police, who -- armed with the probable cause presented by the store -- will inspect your bag for them... Upon inspection they can either let you go, or try to inconvenience you for inconveniencing them. There are many laws in their stinky books to do that. The one used by these cops -- "interfering with official business" is one example. "Disturbing peace" is another, and it can be topped with "resisting arrest" at the first word of your indignant objection.
Aah, but not showing a receipt or refusing a search is not probable cause. Someone leaving the store without submitting to a search is evidence for nothing, and the police are required to treat it as such.
As much as I detest racism and bigots and racists, people are allowing idiots like Sharpton and Jackson and the news media to deceive them. The position they are taking is "you let some white kids go for hanging nooses in a tree, but you imprisoned some black kids who beat up a white kid".
While I'd be up for beating the hell out of any little snotty racist asshole that would hang nooses in a tree in an attempt to intimidate an entire group of people, I have to acknowledge the facts. And these facts are that:
1) These were unrelated incidents that occurred FOUR MONTHS APART.
2) Hanging a noose in a tree is not the same as beating someone up and sending them to the hospital.
3) The legal requirements for charging a youth (not an adult) with a non-violent "hate-crime" is far higher than charging a youth for assault and battery.
So we need to establish that these two events were NOT RELATED. So stop using the results of one to justify the desired results of the other.
Now, after we have done that -- let's look at what reportedly happened that landed these black kids in prison: The white kid was at a gas station and felt threatened by the black kids. So, instead of leaving the scene to avoid a conflict, he went to his truck, pulled out a shotgun and then returned, where they promptly beat his stupid ass.
Now, if some hick went to his vehicle and came back to me with a shotgun (especially in an area where I felt intimidated and threatened routinely because of my skin color), I would surely defend myself by beating his ass and disarming him before waiting to see if he intended to blow my fucking skull clean off my spine.
So should the kids be released? I believe so. But not because of ANYTHING relating to the supposed hypocrisy of the noose-tree incident.
if a guy just keeps walking when asked for a receipt at the store exit, how in your world does a store prevent anyone from shoplifting?
it doesn't make any sense to me. if you are asked for your receipt, just show it! what exactly is the big deal!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Probable cause in shoplifting cases is generally accepted to consist of 6 things, including seeing someone conceal an item. Not showing your receipt is probably not sufficient probable cause. See http://www.expertlaw.com/library/security/shoplifting.html/This link
That's great that he's settled with the police department. But what about Circuit City's cumuppance?
expandfairuse.org
You go into the store, you are now a potential shoplifter. There is no (good) way to tell if the person leaving the store is in fact a shoplifter or not. The store has a choice - they can treat everyone as a potential shoplifter or not. That is pretty much the limit. Notice I'm not saying they can treat everyone as a shoplifter-in-fact, just a potential shoplifter.
You go to a donut shop and they are unlikely to check your bag on the way out. You go to a store where they sell tiny, valuable items and they are very, very likely to check your bag on the way out.
The other alternative is all merchandise is locked away and the store simply fetches stuff from the locked-away-room upon request. Some places operate this way today because of theft. Jewelry stores have a slightly different approach to the same problem, but it is all about small easily-stolen items of high value.
Face it, the US is a den of thieves. Shoplifting in many places runs to as high as 10% of the patrons. This means that there are so many actual shoplifters each day that they have to do something about the problem. If people didn't steal there would be a lot less security. Do you think the store likes spending money on cameras, theft deterrence systems, receipt checkers and the like? Do you think they are doing it just to hassle people?
if you couldn't just SHOW YOUR DAMN RECEIPT and have a nice day!
in your world, it seems anyone can shoplift without any fear of consequences
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
To me this guy came across with a very cavalier and arrogant attitude. It seems to me he is just some 20-something with a bone to pick. He was looking for a fight. Playing dumb and not cooperating with police really makes them angry and then they start looking or creating reasons to arrest you.
Although I see where he is coming from, all he had to do was show his damned receipt. Big deal, you make a smart ass remark to the poor sap that has a job at Circuit City and you get on with your day.
I wouldn't call this a victory either. He got his charges dropped and lost a few thousand dollars and the headache of dealing with the burocracy, lawyers, cops etc. A victory would have been showing your receipt and spending the time as intended, stress-free with his family.
This was no Rosa Parks incident people.
For the record, this is the fourth amendment to the US constitution:
Notice that this amendment does not in any way restrict only the activities of the state; it does not say "... shall not be violated by the state but may be violated by private citizens or corporations if the people stand on their private property ..." or other such libertarian nonsense.
Once I (or anyone else) has purchased an item from a store, and paid for said item in full, the item belongs to me. It does not still belong to the store simply because I am still on the store's property, nor does the store magically have the right to search me or my belongings simply because I am still on their property.
Your property argument, to me, is a bit like saying "You knew you were going to be raped if you came to 808140's house; there is a sign on the door that indicates his depraved intentions clearly. If you didn't want to be raped, you shouldn't have gone to his house." The problem with this statement is that rape is illegal, no matter what I have posted on my front door. Private property or no, sign or no, I will (thankfully) be unable to justify my rape of you in court simply because you deigned to enter my home.
This situation is much analogous, except the statute is the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. You may think I'm arguing in extremes, but you'll notice that the founding fathers did not think to decry rape in that highest document in the land -- but they did think to protect my right to be secure in my person.
I understand that receipt-checking makes it easier for the business to catch shoplifters; I empathize with their motives. I also understand implanting a tracking chip in every man woman and child in this country would make felons easier to apprehend. Thankfully, we Americans have, historically at least, been unwilling to sacrifice our civil liberties simply to make law enforcement easier for those tasked with enforcing it.
This practice of checking receipts and belongings when you leave the store is completely unacceptable. Furthermore, there is no reason to do it. Many stores are designed so that the only way to exit the store is by passing through checkout, and have an aisle specifically for people with no items to purchase. This aisle can be observed and if a shoplifter is suspected security can then detain him. The result is just as good as Circuit City's or Fry's policy, I'm sure. Better, perhaps, because the latter's only protects against shoplifters who clandestinely add an item they didn't purchase into their shopping bag, and does nothing against the shoplifter who simply places an item into his inside pocket, for example.
"if this person is not cooperating then they have something to hide"
If a person replies as AC, does that mean they have something to hide? Or does it mean that there's an expectation of privacy in going about your business.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
If the guy feels that it's a fight that's worth having, then it is. Sure it would be easier to show his receipt and have no hassle. But sometimes people decide that this time it's worth it to put forth the effort and not do the easiest thing.
Here's an example: There's a guy on Slashdot who thinks that the whole Circuit City thing was excessively escalated by some guy just basically being a jerk. So he takes the time to post that opinion. Others disagree, so he responds, reiterating his opinion, when it would have been just as easy --easier, really -- to leave it at that. But he continues the argument anyway. Why doesn't he just forget about it and let them have the last word? It would be easier, sure, but I think that this is an issue that this Slashdot guy feels strongly enough about that he's willing to put up a fight over it, even knowing that no one will "win" that argument.
I am not a crackpot.
Couldn't agree more. Is it inconvenient to show your receipt? - Mildly. Is it worth the hassle to create the big scene this guy did? No way - not for me anyhow. Choose your battles wisely. This guy sounds like he was spoiling for a fight - sorta like a petulant child. I'd have left him on the curb and headed on home. "Call me when you get out of jail..."
Unfortunately for me, I appear to have been mistaken about the character of the fourth amendment (although I stand by the thrust of my post -- I see it as how things ought to be). In United States v. Jacobsen, SCOTUS decided that the 4th amendment did not apply to private citizens -- not surprisingly in a case involving drugs.
What a sham.
Actually, I got my life experience in a public school in Philadelphia for free. College is for getting a degree and a job.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
and you aren't allowed to use force on someone who refuses, why can't anyone shoplift without any fear of consequences?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Here is a clue: When asked to leave, leave. When the police show up and ask you to leave, leave. Don't resist arrest.
Did you read the same story I did? They didn't ask him to leave, they held him illegally.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Sure, they can ask for anything they want to. Doesn't mean they'll get it. CC is a private business - they can ask you to leave or they can hold you for the cops if they see you steal something (and maintain contact as you walk to the entrance).
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
.... in a 'wholesale' grocery place, costco and bestbuy has the practice that there's this guy standing at the exit of the shop and will examine people's receipt and make a marking on the receipt. I wonder if it is blatant violation of civil rights. Somehow I never heard there's any similar incident in here.
i like your style. however, comparing some lazy guy at work wasting time commenting on slashdot with someone spending$ 7500 instead of showing a receipt is like comparing an orange to the moon in terms of proportionality. yes, they are both round, but one is HELLUVA bigger than the other
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
You mean manslaughter for #2.
SIG: HUP
you've successfully used the same logic social conservative idiots use against gay marriage: if you allow gay marriage, then people will marry dogs and dead people and children
uh... no, socially conservative retards, because people can tell the difference
why do social conservative retards think gay marriage and interspecies relationships are the same? because they are hysterical twits. they are using panic and fear rather than logic and reason
in the EXACT SAME WAY, you propose a bullshit slippery slope, proposing to me that a rent-a-cop stopping you at the store exit is the same as a strip search. that people honestly can't tell the difference between those two scenarios
so congratulations, you have replaced logic and reason in your words with a hysterical wall of fear and paranoia
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
if i grab something off the shelf, and head for the exit, what better way is there to confront me than to ask for a receipt
i am all ears as to your vastly superior wisdom
(snicker)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
God, I wish there were more people like you. I'd invite you over, ask you to search your wallet, then you'd probably find all your money missing when I gave it back to you.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
First...I agree that the charges were too harsh.
However, hanging a noose, or displaying swastikas, last time I looked, were not crimes. Physically beating someone, yup..that's a crime. If the person HAD been beaten worse, yes, maybe the harsher criminal charges, but, from what I hear that he wasn't hurt that badly, as you related, no, the charges were too harsh.
But, while displaying emblems, or symbols that may offend others may be distasteful at times, it is not illegal. Freedom of speech pretty much trumps freedom from being insulted, or offended otherwise, it isn't free expression.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
anyone can shoplift, without any fear of prosecution, and no one will stop them
in other words, you are completely out of touch with reality
because, apparently, store rent a cops stopping shoplifters is a sign of the coming fascist armageddeon, somehow
(!?)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The beauty of a free society is that everyone is free to pursue their interests. You have an idea on how time could be better spent? Congrats - go do it. The other beauty of a free society is that no matter how much we think people are assholes for doing what they're doing, they're free to do it. The reason this is a beauty is that a few people with brilliant ideas can change everyone's approach to something, even if everyone initially resists.
You think it's better to show people your receipt? Congrats. Go do it. But don't think for a second that that makes you better. All it says is that you're more interested in not making waves than standing up for a (granted, small) infringement on your current rights. Is it better, worse? Honestly, it's not up to me decide that. I don't even care who's the better person. All I care is that someone else is doing the hard stuff so that I can just sit back, take in the results, and decide whether it's worthwhile making the much smaller sacrifice of joining his stand, or whether I should just ignore him.
He just saved you 10K because you actually don't have to test the theory that it is better to show your receipt than to adhere to the current law. He did that for you. You should thank him for that. Even if you disagree with what he did.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
or you could do it the easy way: "show me your receipt please" (smacks forehead)
exactly why is doing it the hard way better than doing it the easy way, and why would ANYONE have a VALID reason for not showing a receipt?!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm not sure I know what the heck you mean...
As far as I know, there is no such thing as a non-violent hate crime in the US, at least not in LA.
I'm assuming you are alluding to the nooses hung in the tree. While doing that can be construed as insulting, and distasteful.....it is far from being illegal.
Displaying symbols or the like, even if it raises the ire of a particular group, is not against the law.
Beating someone physically IS against the law.
Those are 2 distinct issues. I hope we do not turn into countries like the ones in Europe, where it is against the law to say and do things....I've heard that it is against the law to sell nazi era guns, knives or other artifacts over there, like say on eBay. WTF??
I don't agree with hate speech, or much of the garbage any extreme group spews....but, they do have the right to say and display their expression of their beliefs. And it should remain that way. If you cut them off...what's to prevent cutting off less offensive, but more viable viewpoints and ideas? And cutting off a few more than that....etc.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
What do prior battery convictions have to do with attempted 2nd degree murder charges? What do you know about the prior battery convictions? Were they similarly exaggerated as the 2nd degree murder task? Considering the current state of affairs, I'm curious about that.
As for charges that were reduced pre-trial - some of the defendants were charged with battery instead of attempted 2nd degree murder. Should they be grateful that a gross injustice had been reduced to merely having the book thrown at them - the adult version of the book, not the juvenile version, as required by law?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Another moral of the story: insecure people wearing an uniform because it gives them a sense of power will fly off the handle if they feel their authority is in any way challenged. It isn't the question of being suspicious, it's the question of threatening the policeman's delusions of grandeur.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
How the hell was this AC post modded as insightful?
It's somewhat humorous, and rather sad, that whenever your sort wants to attack the ACLU without exposing your own authoritarian leanings... all you can do is criticize them for not doing enough.
'your sort'? Aren't you making a lot of assumptions about him based on a post that made no mention of his political views? He is absolutely correct in his observation that this wasn't as 'hot' of a topic for the ACLU. By 'hot' he means something that would garner media attention. The thing is, often that attention is drawn by the ACLU getting involved in the first place.
This case was important, not because of the receipt refusal, but of the police officer's reaction. Granted the ACLU doesn't have unlimited resources, but even a slight assistance on their part, even the rumor that the ACLU would get involved might make the city a little more cautious.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
That was part of my point. They should have called the police if they thought he stole something. But the other part of my point was questioning why Michael felt he needed to take a stand against the practice of checking receipts. It would have made far more sense to just stop shopping there. For that matter, if he was irritated about being asked for a receipt, he could have returned the merchandise and asked for his money back with the explanation that he will not patronize a store that pre-assumes that he is a shoplifter.
Instead, he took this pointless stance of ignoring the request and inviting a confrontation. There are perfectly legal ways that Circuit City could have made his life much more miserable than anything he bargained for. They could have taken the license plate of the car he drove off in, and then performed a partial "inventory" to see if anything was missing. If they "discovered" that anything was missing (and bear in mind that there is almost always SOMETHING missing when you check inventory), they could have contacted the police and he would have been a suspect. The police could have taken him into custody and produced search warrants for not only his belongings, but the home and belongings of his family members. All of this is certainly an absurd abuse of law enforcement, but there would have been little or no legal recourse for him. Ultimately, the charges would probably be dropped, or he would be acquitted (due to insufficient evidence), but it would have been unlikely that he could have had the record expunged, and the legal fees involved would have likely been much higher.
Fortunately for him, Circuit City employees seem to have been equally ignorant.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Note to self: Showing up at this guys house in a nice blue uniform with a good plastic badge == obtaining getting his social, drivers license, maybe even some cc numbers. Seriously, not that long ago, NY state had issues with carjackers dressing up as cops, putting blue flashers on their dashboards, and pulling people over on highways, then shooting them and stealing their cars. Aside from the fact that cops themselves can be crooked, there's always the danger that the nice man asking for your ID is just pretending to be a cop. Despite this, most cops get really annoyed when you ask them for ID, badge number, etc. The way I see it, they deserve a little of their own back. All of that is of course mostly irrelevant, the really important point is that we don't have to show ID because we live in a free country, if we did have to show ID, it wouldn't be a free country, and when the cops try to act otherwise, they need to be sued, as a reminder of how far their rights go.
He allowed the police officer to inspect his bags. Then the police officer insisted on seeing his ID; but, because he wasn't driving a vehicle, and since he was cleared of the accusation by the police officer himself, he was under no obligation to provide his ID.
It was the principle of the thing, and I fully understand and agree with him.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I have a better way to handle this problem when it happens with Circuit City (or other store):
When asked to show receipt:
1. Refuse.
2. If pressed, hand them the bag, but not receipt.
3. Pull out cell phone. Call your credit card company and dispute the charges from Circuit City.
4. Circuit City will be hit with extra credit card charges.
a. Charge for post-auth/sale transaction on credit card.
b. Charge for dispute.
c. The lost time working with you.
5. They can always contest your disput since they have a credit card swipe and signature. But you can just rebut with you never received your product. I would keep the receipt just in case.
what is the rationale for the store doing it the hard way? why can't the store just ask everyone for a receipt at the exit, the easy way? what is exactly wrong with that?
because, what is the rationale, ANY valid rationale, for refusing to produce a receipt?
i simply can not understand why anyone would have a problem with that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The point is that we should not have to justify ourselves to anyone, period. The police are not our masters, the government is not our master. We are each, our own master; this is what Liberty means. By requiring us to present any sort of papers or justification for us to be somewhere where we are allowed to be (especially a public place), the government and specifically the police are attempting to proclaim superiority over us. This is absolutely wrong. I applaud Michael Righi for taking a stand and saying, "no." It is sad that he has been dragged through this ordeal. It is sad that, in order to defend his rights as a human being, he was forced to pay out a considerable sum and that his family was so put upon; but this is the price of freedom.
I find it sad that we have become so timid, in this country, that we are willing to tolerate this type of activity by the police. While the officer in question might have thought himself justified in making such a demand, and then enforced his wrongheaded belief with the authority we have granted him , he was wrong and should be called to account for it. We have given the police special powers, because it is necessary for them to do their job. I realize it is a very hard and thankless job; it does not pay well, and is often looked upon with scorn. But, that is something which must be accepted when a person chooses to become a police officer. Along with that, there must come an added level of responsibility to use the powers granted by the people, in an appropriate fashion. Any abuse of those powers, no matter how slight, must be punished. This is were we, as a society, are failing to uphold our rights, and will lose them eventually; we not only allow abuses such as these to go unpunished, we have people who encourage it. The AC who posted the idiocy of, "Why not cooperate?" is complicit is the destruction of our rights. He would give over his personal sovereignty to the police because it is easier. Freedom and Liberty are not easy, they are hard, but they are worth the constant struggle. He may think that having the police rule his life will make him safer, but time and again history has shown us that this is not the case. Governments given absolute sovereignty over their citizens do not long remain benign, and usually lead to tyranny and abuses far greater than the constant annoyance of crime.
Liberty requires that each of us take responsibility for ourselves. This includes accepting a certain level of risk from criminals who may abuse their freedom. This means that you will be responsible for protecting and caring for yourself. In then end, you must ask yourself whether it is better to die on your feet or live on your knees.
Patrick Henry said it best:
I know not what course others make take, but as for me: give me Liberty, or give me death.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
I agree with pretty much everything you've said, but I wanted to add some facts about Mychael Bell (one of the teens who garnered the most initial support due to his being a good football player.) Not only was he on probation for a previous violent assault, he committed 3 other violent crimes (two of them assaults, one a robbery of some kind) while on probation. All of this was factored in for the criminal case.
Simply because of that I don't approve of him being released. He's clearly a violent person and the fact that he's a violent person living in a town with racists shouldn't affect his sentence in any way.
please, i beg of you, i beg of anyone, to give me a valid reason why someone would refuse to show their receipt
i beg someone to tell me exactly what the big deal is with showing your receipt at the door, and why this is such a hardship
please, someone, enlighten me as to horrible freedom-robbing hardship of showing a receipt at the exit of a store!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A victory would have been showing your receipt and spending the time as intended, stress-free with his family.
"Freedom isn't free."
A lot of people say this as if they mean it. Not many are willing to pay the price.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
The fuckup at the root of all this was that he was pushing his luck with the cop. You have to pick your fights. The fight with the store was a valid one and fundamentally winnable, and he could have made hay out of the whole situation if he had cooperated with the cop's request for ID. His principled opposition to giving ID to the cop cost him the game because the ensuing bogus arrest took center stage and didn't allow him to focus his resources, his family support, and the media attention on the behavior of the store.
ignorance might be bliss...but it sure as hell is not an excuse, nor should it be a reason to let the officer escape unscathed. By doing so, its ...we'll try not to let it happen again...wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
Anyone know what happened to the charges he filed against the CC guy? Thought he mentioned something about them being dropped in his blog but didn't go into much details...
Walk with Music;
for the store to assume you are shoplifting?
how can the store tell the difference between you not wanting to show your receipt and a guy who doesn't have a receipt?
are you telling me shoplifters don't exist? are you telling me a store doesn't have a right to stop shoplifters?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Elaborate. Are you arguing the three strike equivalent here? Because that's a whole different ball of wax. Or are you arguing that battery -> attempted 2nd degree murder is a proper escalation of charges? Don't forget - from a legal perspective, once you've served your sentence, you've paid your debt to society. You have the same rights and privileges as anyone else. Finally, shouldn't the circumstances of the crime dictate the charges? I.e., charge someone with attempted murder if they actually tried to kill someone? And charge them with battery if it was a simple beating they administered?
You might want to think your snide comments through. You otherwise run the risk of sounding like the stereotypical tv-addled consumer with all breadth and no depth.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
that one made a purchase at a store?
are you telling me shoplifters don't exist?
are you telling me a store doesn't have a right to stop shoplifters?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"1) These were unrelated incidents ..."
Doubtful.
Hateful people tend to hold grudges, for a lot longer than 4 months
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Exactly. The cops are there to do a job. And it is in appropriate and ineffective to file complaints about the government while the police are trying to get information from you or trying to detain you. The correct audience for your serious complaints is a court, where people can be civil and nobody has to be arrested, tasered, beaten or shot.
They are there to enforce, to the best of their knowledge, the law. If you do not agree with their interpretation, or you think the law is unfair. It is impractical to voice your protest to the police, who lack any judicial powers to actually help you out. If someone is acting suspicious and refuses to show ID that's a right flag, and the cops are hoping you're just some crank, but will want to actually check you out because you could be acting that way because there is a warrant out for your arrest. If the cops have you and just let you go, after you sent up red flags and it turns out you did have a warrant there would be serious repercussions to that officer and his department.
Also I would like to note that for minor things (example: like you didn't like the cop's abusive attitude when he wrote you a speeding ticket). Most of us don't want to invest the time in a court case, especially if we'd lose. But you can file a formal complaint with his department or with the city.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I did and he never had any evidence saying that he was arrested until he posted his settlement arangement. I did ftfa, how about you do next time before people go and call this guy a marter. I do however support his claim to have donated the monies collected the the university. Again however this is not news its the guys blog, a first hand report with no supporting evidence. For all you dreamers who think that this guy is a saint of civil liberties this guy could very well had the city pay his legal fees (undiscloased settlement) and he could have bought a 50" plasma tv (likly not at Circuit City). And don't mod as troll just because its a POV that you do not agree with. There is always 2 sides of the story.
Didn't you used to make sense back on k5? What happened?
I think you just answered your own question.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I basically agree with the guy, but here's what I would have done differently: I would have complied with the police officer if he was right or not. Our circuit city shopper could have claimed victory against the Circuit City employee and been done with it. Sometimes it not about being 100% right, but rather being 70% right (and avoiding a lot of sh*t). I think I will try this on my next visit to Fry's or Circuit City or Costco.
Arrogance is not a crime. Failure to comply with basic requests from snarky store managers is not a crime.
Inventing reasons to arrest someone is a crime, and a significant one, and undermines the entire legal structure. Not standing up for your rights for convenience sake (nay, even time with the family's sake) is cowardice and shirking of civic responsibly.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
The store picked the time to wrongfully detain him. The police picked the time to ask him for his ID, etc... Exactly when are we supposed to stand up for our rights again? Oh, when it won't inconvenience others. Guess we'll always have to submit to unreasonable law enforcement actions if someone's with us.
So I read that as "The government is the only entity which is bound by the Constitution". Which perhaps makes sense given the assumption that ordinary laws would address this. In the context of the decision I think all it says is that the evidence retrieved by the DEA agent was admissable because the unreasonable search was not performed by the DEA agent, and the agent had no involvement or knowledge of the search before it had taken place. Something along the lines of the shipping company's crime has no bearing on the DEA agent's actions. The person who had shipped the package would then certainly be allowed to go after the person performing the unreasonable search under any applicable state or federal law. Do you read that the same way?
Not that I agree... especially the way that the Bill of Rights is written, asserting our rights rather than what the government can't do. But I don't think it's quite as heinous as it seemed at first, given that the government agent must have no involvement whatsoever... so it isn't like they can get around the Constitution by recruiting private citizens to run around opening people's mail to find drugs.
Applied to this situation, I believe it would mean that, although you couldn't go after Circuit City on the 4th amendment, you most certainly could go after them for assault and the unreasonable search under federal or state law. At least, I certainly hope there's a law somewhere that says you can't just go up to someone and force them to show you their posessions.
fascinating read, though... thank you for the link!
And if you read the article *real* close, you'll notice that if he is tried for battery, he *has* to be tried as a juvenile. Only anything related murder requires an adult court.
The pre-trial reduction is irrelevant. If I start with a stupid charge, should you be happy that you get a somewhat less stupid charge later?
Prior convictions are indeed taken into consideration. However, a prior conviction for battery doesn't mean that another battery automatically gets elevated to attempted 2nd degree murder. You get to increase the sentence for another battery conviction, but you don't get to charge an entirely different crime.
The same thing goes for the violation of probation. Violation of probation is its own separate crime, with its own sentencing rules. Just because you violate a probation doesn't mean that you get to have an entirely new charge thrown at you.
I'm really curious - do you think that he actually tried to kill the guy?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
With Costco you sign a contract agreeing to let them do the exit check. SO it's different. I go to costco because I balance that against the value I get for my family. If fry's became a membership club I'd stop going.
However, I don't stop at any other stores exit people. I've never been stopped. I just say no thanks and keep walking.
I won't even stop if they have some infernal machine that beeps and whistles when I walk by.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Silly free men, insisting that they not turn out their pockets or submit ID on demand to whomever demands it. What are they thinking? That we are free? Only businesses and police have rights. We have the right to stop making a fuss and go along. Tase him, bro. Submission is freedom, freedom is slavery, kookookachoo.
Okay, Chet, calm down. First of all, FTFA stands for "From The Fucking Article", so my comment was "here's a doc from the article", not instruction for you to do anything. Secondly, I didn't say the guy was a martyr, saint, or anything else, you asked if there was any evidence that this had actually happened and I pointed out the document. At the bottom of that document is the number for his attorney and the name of the prosecutor. If you really wanted to make sure this was legit, you could contact either of them. I'm quite certain that if you discovered this was a scam, you'd get your fifteen minutes of Slashdot fame. And finally, FTFA, he didn't donate the money to a university, he donated it to the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union.
I stole this sig from a more creative user.
Don't know if this has been pointed out yet, but Mr. Righi has written that people who question his motivation should read The Fountainhead. That's all I needed to know about his thought process... Anyone who accepts that book as a serious philosophical treatise isn't a very deep thinker and most likely just wants an excuse to go on an ego trip.
If Righi really wants to have more Howard Roarks in the world he should have dragged this whole thing out to the bitter end, family be damned. After all, what's more Romantic and Randian than being martyred for what you believe? Even if what you believe is only that you shouldn't take two seconds to show your receipt at Circuit City after buying a Wii game. Actually, I hear that was originally what Rand was going to write about in The Fountainhead, but her publisher suggested she make it about architects instead...
I hear you. I mean, he did this all on purpose.
"Of course I knew what this was about, but I played dumb and pretended that I didn't know what the problem was."
Is it unreasonable for a store to check your receipt before you leave? I don't think it's that big of a hassle, but if I did have a problem with it, I'd just exercise my freedom to shop somewhere else. It's not like they wanted to strip search him. He bolted to a running car waiting out front of the store which looks pretty shady and I'm willing to bet that was intentional as well.
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
I fully support this guy. Some times it is worth wasting your time and money to bring attention to a wrong. It's just a matter of degrees for where you draw the line on what you would be willing to go through. For me, it's definitely not as far as he went.
I do walk past the receipt checkers most of the time. A simple "No Thanks" or "Hi, how ya doin?" without breaking stride is usually not resisted. I've never actually been chased outside the store.
If I was forced to comply inside the store, I would explain that if they insist on searching me they can, but I will return the purchase and cease to shop there.
If I was outside the store, I would keep walking - rather than get in a car where they can block your path. By walking, you give them the choice to give up or assault you to stop your exit. At that point, you would have a much better case against them, and/or the option to physically defend yourself. Also, by keeping yourself and the bags out in the open, you eliminate any claims that you had more stolen items when you left the store.. In the car, they could claim you removed items and hid them.
Obviously, you also need to vote with your dollars. Don't shop at stores that you find offensive, and try to draw attention to their practices.
You apparently do not understand the difference between "ask for a receipt" and "hold you prisoner against your will - in a criminal fashion - if you say no." The guy didn't ask for a receipt, he demanded it and committed at least two crimes (three counts on one of them) when to to blow.
And you approve of that.
You're beyond fascist police state, son. This wasn't the police exercising fascist police state powers, it was a rent-a-cop.
If there's any justice in the world, you'll learn that difference first hand, one day soon.
If they want to detain me because they believe I'm a shoplifter, then they should come out and say it, flat out: "Sir, we expect you have shoplifted. Please step into this room and allow us to examine your receipt and your bags."
Bet if they said that every time instead of "Can I see your receipt?" the sheepies wouldn't be as willing to roll over.
If you want to make it a law that we have to have our receipt checked, then write your Congressmen. Until then, I have no want to adhere to this practice.
What sense does it make to ask someone for their receipt when they have just walked 10 feet from a cash register to a door? The only thing I could see this preventing is a cashier not ringing up some items for an accomplice.
I have been in a hurry at a Best Buy (I avoid Best Buy now, for other reasons) and walked ten feet to the door only to be intercepted by some employee who asked to see my receipt. I asked the employee if they were suggesting I had stolen something and got the biggest horseshit line. "Oh, no no no sir! This is for your convenience. I need to make sure you got all the items you were charged for today." Other times I have walked past them.
The only time I was actually accused of shoplifting was at a Meijer store, where someone behind us on the way out kept asking where the batteries were. I finally realized they were talking to me. The lady said that I was seen taking batteries, and she would like me to produce them. I told her I didn't even know where the batteries were in the store, and the accusation was ridiculous. Then she said she would have to take me to the manager if I did not produce the batteries. I told her that I would absolutely love to talk to the manager, and she backed down and let me go. I was a kid at the time, but I should have gone to see the manager anyways.
I'm sorry. He may not have been as calm or rational about this as he should have at the time it was transpiring, but in principal I am on his side. I also refuse to show my receipt to the stores when I purchase items. It, in no uncertain terms, pisses me off that as a patron to the ever growing number of stores that do this, I am considered a shop lifter until proven innocent. We don't do that in this country; anyone heard of a little something called innocent until proven guilty? Not to mention the fact that by the time they want to check your receipt the stuff is now yours. Who the hell do they think they are demanding to search me and my property, especially when I have showed no suspicious behaviour, or signs of wrongdoing. Now, if someone working security for the store swears up and down I shoved something in my pocket I'd probably humor him, and let him search me. I'd probably rub it in his face when he didn't find anything, but I wouldn't be too upset. I am all for some security measures to prevent shop lifting, and certainly if the police get involved they can ask you to do a lot more and expect you to carry out their directions. Anyway, I'm just waiting for Wals-Mart to make a wrong move and arrest me with no proof, etc. I certainly wouldn't mine claiming my own little chunk of their fortune. Of course, it probably won't happen since I avoid stores that do this like the plague...
I guess it's a good idea that you posted as AC.
Any abuse of police powers should be fought, period.
Complacency is the first step to losing the rights that our ancestors fought, bled and died for. Do you want to be the one to tell good old uncle GW (George Washington, not the other asshats) that you pissed away everything that all those men and women died for?
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
He was on their property when he was asked to show his receipt, but the receipt and the merchandise were his property at that point. Then a manager and an employee followed him outside the store and physically detained the car he was a passenger in.
A store has a right to protect its property and eject people from its premises. They have no rights concerning someone else's property nor their mobility. They should have written down his license plate number and let the police do the policing.
Indeed, what the store employees did amounts to unlawful detention and kidnapping. CC should be sued.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Indeed, there is. And it's in front of a jury. There's no other way. But the store manager didn't do that, because in order to put it to a jury, there has to be an arrest made, and in order to make an arrest, you are supposed to have probable cause. Which is to say, you have to personally watch the suspect take something out of the store without paying for it. Which neither the manager nor the door nazi did, and the manager knew it. In other words, they had no case, and they admitted it when they were invited to make a citizen's arrest, and refused to do so.
If you think that searching someone's person against their will on the bases of a non-accusation is the only way to prove shoplifting, then I accuse you of shoplifting my car and shoving it up your ass, and you must now immediately allow me to do a body cavity search. Not the police, not someone who has made a credible accusation, me, right now, or you're just a hypocrite.
Free hint, son: if everybody else in the world is retarded but you, it's not everybody in the world else in the world that's retarded.
I really, truly, sincerely hope that you, personally, are falsely accused of shoplifting something you paid for, and arrested, and put in jail, on the basis of unfounded accusations. You, personally, deserve it. Seriously.
Instead of suing, why not hit them where it really hurts. I go out of my way to not shop anywhere where they inspect receipts on the way out the door.
In some cases, I've been asked for a receipt, and in turn I've asked for a manager to watch/help me return all the merchandise I purchased.
I don't shop at Best Buy, I don't shop at Circuit City. I don't shop at Wal-Mart, I don't shop at Sam's Club. I've given up on Fry's Electronics, and similarly on CompUSA.
What do these places have that absolutely everyone is willing to put up with their crap to get? Even for this guy who won a pyrrhic victory; the cost of the suit was paid by the hundreds of walking cash registers who midlessly hand over money for shit they don't need to anyone who will take it.
Hit them where it hurts: don't shop at places you don't like. And tell a friend.
Message contains 1 attachment: spam.gif
Costco and Kmart ask to see your receipt and inspect your purchases.
Costco's signs say they want to insure that you weren't overcharged
for your purchases (ya, right!). The "inspection" is a joke, the
guy at my costco just takes the receipt, glances at my shopping cart
and then draws a smiley face on the receipt with a high-lighter.
Civil rights came to be codified into law to make sure people would not be subject to unjust duress, such as being arrested for refusing to comply with an illegal request (the cop asking for a driver's licence when one was not driving) after one complained being illegally detained by store personnel.
The 4th amendment and its applicability to private businesses is just fine. What happened is the SCOTUS has been, well, fucked up with right-wingers who consistently side with expanded police powers since the Nixon administration. Hell, they limited the scope of the 9th amendment, with no justification, because the 9th trumps a lot of this idiocy (9th: just because we didn't list a right doesn't mean it doesn't exist). This reign of witches will pass, but since Bush picked some REALLY young men for the SCOTUS, you may have noticed, it may be a half century or more (considering life extending tech available in the future) before these screw-you-there's-a-drug-war-on idiots die and we replace them with scholars who understand that cops ain't a country.
If the store employee saw him steal something, they can perform a citizens arrest and hold him until the police arrive. If they get it wrong, they can be sued for a selection of offences, including false imprisonment, so they better be sure he actually stole something.
If they don't see him do anything, then tough luck. They can call the police and let them deal with him.
The police don't have the right to arbitrarily search people without cause, why on earth should a fellow citizen, with far less oversight, have that right?
SOME RENT-A-COP JUST ASKS YOU FOR A RECEIPT
And to search his bag. Don't forget that bit. Hmm. I think you're a thief. Please take photos of the entire contents of your wallet, including your credit cards, and post them on the internet where I can see them. Or does privacy and protection from unlawful searches only matter when it's *your* privacy?
i know, that's some really wacky fascist thinking on my part, right?
Yup, it's blind accession to fake authority lying and pretending they have legal authority to perform searches when in fact it's illegal for them to do so, and support of detainment and the requirement to present ID by a cop who again had no right to do so is indeed fascist thinking. Well done.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
Common decency is one thing. Circuit City did not extend this courtesy to Michael, which is why he had no reason to extend the courtesy of showing his receipt to the "guard" at the door.
The time and place to examine merchandise leaving the store is at the cash register. All merchandise must be out in the open at that point, and if the cashier is too stupid or incompetent to make sure all the items are paid for, it's the fault of the cashier and the company that hired them. After the customer has exchanged payment for the items, the store has absolutely no claim on the items or on the person carrying them. Asking to see the receipt is not common decency, it's rude. The implication is that either the customer is a thief or the store is incompetent and undeserving of the customer's patronage. The guard at the door is to cover the sloppy asses of the underpaid cashiers at the inconvenience of the customer. Nothing more.
I would like to inspect all the cash registers and financial systems of the stores I shop at in order to ensure that they didn't overcharge me (how do I *really* know that they charged my credit card what it says on the terminal?). If I can't do that, then they can't ask to see my receipt after I've paid. It's as simple as that.
If you're concerned about common sense and decency, ask the stores to have some.
i know, that's some really wacky fascist thinking on my part, right?
Yes, the idea that normal people should listen to and obey anyone in authority without question is decidedly fascist. The degree of fascism is small, but who cares? Not seeing one measly receipt is no big deal for Circuit City either. They should just accept the fact that some people don't want to show their receipt and have the common sense and decency to accommodate them.
The news article says that, in the end, Righi admitted that the police officer did nothing wrong:
Righi himself disagrees, and says in his blog:
So, Righi says that he never admitted that the police was wrong. But it doesn't end here! Further down on his blog, we come across this comment:
So, who's telling the truth?
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
You may not realize this, but Europe still hasn't recovered from the Second World War. The former East Germany, for example, is still repairing the damage left by totalitarian communism, and the countries behind the Iron Curtain are even worse. Many people still remember the whole continent getting burned to bedrock in the war. Add to this a bunch of morons running around and calling themselves "Neo-Nazis" and therefore paying homage to the Nazis who are commonly considered the instigators of the whole mess, and it becomes quite understandable why Nazi memorabilia makes people nervous. Remember also that these laws were originally passed right after the war to suppress Nazi party, many supporters of which survived. Laws, once made, tend to keep on living long past their usefulness.
There is, of course, another, darker reason: revisionism. Nazis did horrible things. So did their collaborators in other countries. It is less-than-honorable period in Germany's and many other countries history, so they'd rather pretend it never happened. I've heard that Japan has a similar problem with its own atrocities, often committed against the civilians of its empire: they simply aren't mentioned in history books.
Of course one might point out that in Europe it is illegal to say or do things but the police won't taser you for it, while in the USA it is legal to say or do things but the police will taser you for doing or saying them anyway.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
1) I walk into a store and buy nothing. Am I obligated to produce a receipt to leave the store ?
2) I buy something and leave the store. Do I now have less rights than a non-customer ?
3) Let say that I refuse to show a receipt, and walk from the store.
The store has two legal options. They can let me go, or they can accuse me of shoplifting and call the cops. THAT is what their options are, nothing more.
4) My financial records, and the contents of my shopping bag are my personal property. Show me the search warrant, you do have one to search my property right?
I believe I was born with the right to resist unwarrant, unjustified, unconstitional searched of my property.
What the HELL is wrong with you, that you hand over your rights without a second thought ? You sir are a terrorist. Your ideals threaten the safety and liberty of the American population, and ultimately I fear people like you will destroy what remains of this countries civil liberties.
Oh please, that kid was a dick who was asking to get tasered by his behavior and actions.
Ah so acting in a perfectly legal manner is asking to be tasered? That's your point?!? Wow.
It only seems outrageous when you look at it on the surface.
No, he was doing nothing in the least illegal. Therefore to have police taser him for doing nothing wrong is absolutely outrageous criminal behavior.
The fact that you completely reject the concept of laws and have decided that being tortured by the police is a valid punishment for acting in a perfectly legal manner that you happen to disapprove of proves you to be a fucking monster.
Let's look at what the inevitable results of going with your blatantly retarded system are:
I don't apporove of weak willed cowards who think that innocent people should be tased for acting in a way that they disapprove of. Therefore, you *deserve* to be beaten to a bloody pulp and then kicked until you are dead.
According to you, you are asking for just such treatment and deserve exactly that.
I'm sure being the person of integrity you delusionaly think you are that you'll happily take your just deserts right?
If not, shut the fuck up when you don't have clue what the hell you're talking about.
If you want the protection of the law then he gets it too. That's the only way these things can possibly work. The idiocy of your statement is beyond comprehension.
Mod parent up. Excellent point.
Um. The guy with the shotgun and the guy who got beat by the six are not the same, at least not according to Wikipedia. They're two separate incidents. The beating that is the focus and result of the "attempted 2nd degree murder" charge (that was reduced) happened at the school. Just thought I'd throw that out there. They didn't beat up the guy with the gun -- they just took it from him.
So, who's telling the truth?
Do you have a habit of asking questions with obvious answers?
I wonder what Ohio law has to say about this old common law idea.
I wonder how different this discussion would be if it was a small Mom and Pop shop instead of a big cooperation.
The best thing he could have done would be to turn around and return the item he bought after they demanded to see his receipt. If everyone did this, they would stop asking.
It's against Visa/Mastercard's policy for merchants to ask for ID. They even have online complaint forms where you can complain about a business. A merchant asks for ID, they can get hit with a $50,000 fine or have their contract terminated.
Which I think is BS, since it's the merchant that also has to take the hit for a fraudulent transaction.
what is wrong with the world today is self-involved hysterical twits who's delicatef lower nature is deeply affronted and go apeshit, because... drum roll please... are you ready for the massive assault on rights and personal liberties?: SOME RENT-A-COP JUST ASKS YOU FOR A RECEIPT
What a fucking idiotic lunatic you are. Are you even capable of dealing with reality?
You're not saying anything that indicates that you even understand anything about what happened and you're therefore coming across as a delusional lunatic.
Your sentence above has nothing to do with the situation. Let's take it nice and slow in the hopes that with a lot of effort you'll be capable of understanding a very very simple situation:
The RAC asked for his receipt. Fine, that's within his rights. The man refused. Fine that's well within his rights. He has no reason whatsoever to submit to any sort of search by said RAC.
OK, that is the extent of what you covered in that sentence except that you assume that somehow there is some reason for him to sumbit which there quite obviously is not. That is the first major delusion you're suffering from.
Now, then you go on to pretend that somehow his declining the search was in any way related to what followed. That is false.
Once he refused the search, the interaction was over. He did everything that could be expected of him and was going on his way.
Now, those are the facts of the matter. They are not subject to debate. Your feelings about how he should have handled the situation are entirely irrelevant. The fact is that he was asked to do something he had no obligation or reason to do and so opted not to do it. Good luck trying to justify your insane whining about how he should have gone out of his way to promote somebody else's interest. There is no law requiring him to do anything of the sort, so that was the end of any *legal* actions the store or the police could take against him.
Now, given that this was the situation, at that time the store employee crossed over the line and began engaging in *illegal* activities. When the cop arrived, the man was perfectly cooperative but the cop wasn't happy with the man happily meeting *every* legal requirement so the cop opted to violate the law.
Now, I know you are a coward and believe that people should do whatever they're told as you made perfectly clear in your post, but a lot of people do not subscribe to your cowardly world view. As of today, it is still within my rights not to be the sort of weak willed pussy that you have chosen to be. Given that I do still have that right, your post is shown to be utterly ignorant worthless and quite a bit insane.
Perhaps you should pay attention once in a while rather than leaping to the defense of the criminals in this matter with idiotic, uninformed cowardly drivel?
lol ^^ wtf is this guy talking about? I couldn't even focus enough to finish one sentence of his "storey".
do you know what fascism is?
what kind of paranoid hysterical low iq twit mistakes fascism for a rent a cop asking for a receipt?
Look, you were dead wrong in the first place, the parent explained it to you in small words and then you repeat the idiotic nonsense he just proved to you was bullshit from the start.
the RAC *asking* for the receipt isn't fascist behavior.
Illegally detaining him for not *choosing* to do something which he was under no obligation to do is an entirely different thing.
Now, you knew you were lying in the first place, the parent proved it to you beyond any doubt and yet here you are retelling the same exact fucking lie.
Shut up you lying fool of a troll until you learn basic common sense and some ability to think.
Just for the record, he wished to leave. The store manager wouldn't allow him to, physically preventing his vehicle from leaving the store's parking lot. He then called the police. The police arrested him for refusing to show his id. Incidentally Ohio law explicitly states he did not have to show his id.
He did not resist arrest. He did not become belligerent. No undue force was used by the police during the arrest since it was entirely unnecessary.
According to the Cleveland paper, he "agreed that a police officer did nothing wrong in arresting him after he refused to show his driver's license."
Mr. Righi is outraged about this: "I never said such a thing and would never say such a thing.". He points to the release he signed as proof.
The release, however, seems to disagree. It says quite plainly that "all parties mutually release each other of all claims".
In other words, not only does the City drop its charges against Mr. Righi, but Mr. Righi cannot claim that the the police offer did anything wrong.
It's a shame that Mr. Righi apparently did not read or did not understand what he was signing.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
It doesn't matter anyway. If you sign something with something that you intend someone else to understand as your signature, it is your signature, legally. It doesn't matter if it matches your normal signature or is actually your name or whatever. An X is a legal signature. (And, no, you don't need it witnessed, you're signing it in front of someone, you already have a witness.)
It also is supposed to be, according to the CC company, used by the store to make sure you haven't stolen the card, but as they are the ones that clearly don't want to do that, I don't really see how it's any sort of moral victory over them if they don't. It's the store pulling one over on the CC company, not you pulling one over on the store, and their 'victory' means that stolen cards are less likely to be detected.
Incidentally, when I worked at Wal-Mart, I would have been one of the people who caught him. I actually did look at signatures and ask for ID if they didn't seem to match and you'd signed the back of the card, or always checked if someone had written 'check ID'. (If they didn't sign their card, they obviously didn't care if someone had stolen it.)
Granted, I had no 'signature comparison' training, and basically, if it was mostly the same style, I was fine with it. I think I only checked ID a dozen times, not counting 'check ID' people. But it was interesting to watch people realize the reason I was still holding their card and hadn't given it back to them yet was that I was waiting for them to sign the paper so I could glance at them both.
It was also interesting the number of 'check ID' people who expressed gratitude and amazement that I actually check their ID. (Yes, I'm aware, legally, there's no requirement even if they write that, but it's common courtesy.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
That's not the way shoplifters work - it's in their pockets, down their pants, etc. And the guys checking receipts at the door aren't looking in those places, just in the bag.
The REAL reason for that guy at the door who looks in your bag and checks your receipt is to monitor the performance of the people running the cash registers. This allows them to catch mistakes and put a stop to that old "ring up every other item for your friends" scam.
If any shoplifters are caught it's incidental - they're not looking for shoplifters because they're looking IN THE WRONG PLACE. The "door nazis" are working for the loss control department but they're trying to cut down on losses to internal problems.
Think about it for a few minutes and you'll realize that this is the truth.
Now, just exactly what right do you suppose they have to force you to help them prevent their employees from stealing? What right do they have to detain and / or search you? The store personnel have no police powers and they're subject to the same laws as everyone else. Except for one limited circumstance they can not detain you in any way, and they can not search you - any attempt to do so is a crime. That limited exception is when they see you shoplift an item and continuously observe you carry it out of the store without paying. In that situation they can detain you until the police arrive. They have to call the police immediately and can not interrogate or search you.
Each time I see this topic replied to with "just show them the receipt, what do you have to hide?" comments it points out a real problem in our society. Why should you blindly obey and comply with a request to perform an illegal search of your person / possessions by an employee at some retail store?
Suppose someone set up a checking station on a busy sidewalk and asked to search the purse of every passing female. That's not right, is it? But what they're doing at the store is no different.
So if you feel OK with helping the store management monitor their employees and don't mind the offense against your basic constitutional rights - go ahead and let them look in your bag and check your receipt. But if you don't feel that this is the proper course of action then feel free to say "No, thanks" and walk right by. If a store employee makes an attempt to stop you and touches you in the attempt, go right ahead and sue them. Call it assault, or unlawful detainer and make them pay. If they call the police - be nice to the officer, he's just doing his job. Keep in mind that he's not there because you were leaving the store, the person in the store that called him said you were shoplifting. Once he's seen that you're not stealing anything he'll tell them to let you go. Don't make the officer's job harder; just remember to add "false criminal report" to the store's list of offenses and make them pay even more.
Remember, the descent into fascism is paved with passive agreement to corporate control over our lives. You might not be able to stop it, but we can slow it down a little by not giving in to these attempts by retail stores to seize police powers.
Yes.
You gang up 6 to one on someone just because they did or said something you don't like then yes you deserve to go to jail.
BTW my uncle helped to liberate one of the Nazi death camps. So yea I really hate Nazis but a crime is a crime and getting a gang together to beat up one person is a crime.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Assuming the Mr. Righli's self comments are accurate to the situation, I'm impressed by his personal dedication to protecting civil liberties, and saddened that he had to quit prematurely due to the realities of life. I mean no personal criticism of him or certainly not to diminish his serious effots.
However, while I can understand and support his choice to not show ID to the policeman, I still fail to understand his refusal to show his receipt and bag to Circuit City. Though he has a principled and legal view on this, it seems wholly divorced from reality.
Practically, if a store cannot inspect your receipt and bagged possessions before you leave the store to prevent shoplifting, the logical solution is to: keep absolutely all merchandise locked up and behind counters, and to not give customers any merchandise until they've paid and are stepping out the door. The Soviets essentially did it this way. It's monumentally inefficient and consumer hostile.
The world is imperfect place filled with imperfect people. Showing a receipt and my bag of stuff is a fair compromise for easy-to-browse and shop stores. And if someone's got a better way that doesn't involve bag-checking, I'd enjoy hearing it.
ShoutingMan.com
It seems reasonable to show a receipt before exiting a store. He was just being annoying about that. He is absolutely correct about not showing I.D. This is not East Germany or the Soviet Union. Yet.
I think, therefore I thought.
Don't you just love the Ross Perot excuse? Get your family into it, then they can sue the city as well for dragging them through the mud. If your family has any sense at all they will recognize this for what it is and fight themselves. They should support you regardless as they're family. It's good you taught the youngest something, too bad it was the wrong thing.
It has been said that those who don't learn from the past, are doomed to repeat it. I supposed the same can be said for those to 'ignore' it or pretend it never happened.
"Of course one might point out that in Europe it is illegal to say or do things but the police won't taser you for it, while in the USA it is legal to say or do things but the police will taser you for doing or saying them anyway."
Yeah...that's a sad what has been happening. But, hopefully (I'm often over optimistic), the publicity on these incidents will help provoke action that will curb this type of behavior by the police. The police often ARE acting with much more force than necessary...and I think it may be due to proliferation of so called non-life threatening weapons. They are much too quick to use them when not necessary.
Like the college student situation the other day. Yes, he was acting a bit of an ass...yes, he was trying to get attention with his stunt...but, the cops went too far when they tasered him...ESPECIALLY doing it to him while he was on the ground cuffed. They are doing a disciplinary investigation on at least one of those officers now....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Its a shame your family issues prevented you from pressing this. There was already a clear legal precedent, you had a clear transcript of the written law. Not only would you have won the case, but you could have in turn sued Circuit City inc. for unlawful imprisonment (preventing you from exiting on your own accord). You could have then sued the city, particularly the officer, for false arrest.
Sadly, as has been stated, the DA basically silenced him with a deal. Real change only occurs when you DO press the issue, and then bitchslap the hell out of the state and company so they learn their lesson and don't do it again. Because you left it where it stood, nothing punitive is going to happen to CC. Their policies will not change, and other people will recieve the same treatment. The city will still ignore its own laws.
Hell, you most likely could have found a lawyer to do it pro-bono so long as you promised to follow through with a civil suit. I applaud your courage, most americans these days would sooner forget their rights than use them. However, ultimately you've cost yourself and a lot of other people money and accomplished absolutely nothing. Your actions are notable for their utter lack of meaning in the grand scheme of things.
ahhhh, much better. :-)
(excellent post, really)
Please stop stalking me, bro.
If it's a hard and thankless job and it doesn't pay well,
By all means, pay them more. BUT then hold them to a Code of Conduct. Actually I bet if you got rid of all of the victimless crimes on the books such as drug possession and prostitution so that law enforcement can concentrate on violent criminals and the theft and robbery of property the number of officers can be reduced while also making it safer.
Why don't you just admit that you don't like and don't want cops
Wrong. We just don't need as many as we have. On a per capita basis the US has the highest per capita prison population in the world. And a good chunk of the prison population is there for victimless crimes such as drug possession. While mandatory sentencing guidelines can put a person convicted of drug possession in prison for life, robbers, murderers, and rapists can get out after serving several years. Strike all victimless crimes from law books then less prisons will be needed to lockup dangerous criminals.
you just better be ready for a society without police officers (make sure you buy a nice gun, and know how to use it).
Most people should be able to protect themselves anyway. But where needed others can help. Instead of passersby passing by they can help a crime victim. "I don't want to get involved" is BS.
Do I have to remind people we are talking about a guy who refused to show his receipt and identification?
Which he was not required to provide. Would you like it if you were required to wear a Star of David on your sleeve? If not why not?
This isn't the American Revolutionary War. Nor is this part of some civil right movement. Give me a fucking break.
Give me a break from tyranny!!!
FalconShould there be a Law?
definitely snobby. we should only fight things that are "worth" spending $10,000 on? What a fucking joke!
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Failure to produce ID for a police officer when not driving, copping an attitude and playing dumb when they can sense it isn't exactly a crime either. But it's not going to get you a walk in the park.
It just seems to me there are much better ways he could have handled the situation.
You COULD have let them just search your car, and throw all your belongings outside and leave them for you to pick up, but instead you said no.
Yea. Freedom should be defined by the laziest way out. You should never stand for principles unless it's convenient.
Summary: You're an asshole. If everyone was like you, we'd still be speaking with a British accent, or worse yet, in German. Move to Mexico. You'll like their brand of freedom better. It's more well-suited to your philosophy. You simply don't fight a fight if it isn't worth it. You can bribe your way out of any crime. You should always do what it easiest, not what is right. Mexico is perfect for you.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
of the nearest Circuit City, but I'll never buy anything from them again unless Circuit City publicly apologizes, pays this gentlman's legal bills, and gives his younger siblings complimentary Sony PS3s. FUCK YOU, CIRCUIT CITY ASSHOLES! I'll be buying my electronics online and telling everyone I know your executives are authoritarian assholes.
Freedom is free.
It's completely another to be an arrogant prick, forcing your will onto others for no good reason, other than he's a complete stubborn moron.
Yeap, that door checker certainly was a stubborn moron.
There's a time and place to pick fights and this example is certainly not one of them. Some people talk about banning Circuit City. If I were running Circuit City, I would ban this asshole from ever being allowed back into the store.
Oh, I see you meant someone who stands up for his rights was the stubborn moron. If you really think that then I think you're the one it should be applied to. If people don't stand up for their rights they soon find they don't have any rights.
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me,
Falconthere was no one left to speak out.
Should there be a Law?
Just one problem with that: cops lie, and are allowed to lie. For example, in this case the officer is perfectly capable of lying and saying it was the law that the man had to show ID. If he went ahead and provided ID, he has nothing to go to court for, because he willingly handed over his ID. The only way the officer will learn the error of his ways is if the city has to pay out on a lawsuit, so he gets chewed out for costing the city money.
I for one agree with you. I guess we have to choose our battles wisely. He seemed to be looking for a fight.
And to all those screaming about civil rights. How many times have you refused to show your receipt? Or do you comply so you can just get on your way?
Did you miss the part where the guy said no (or ignored the Rent-a-cop) and then was unlawlfully detained? I agree, he was being a pompous ass for not just showing the receipt, and then pushing the matter, but he was within his rights to do so.
The problem arose at that point. When the store employees detained him. It got worse when the police officer broke the law and arrested him. The guy should have never dropped his case. He should have sued the police department, or at least the individual cop and the store employees for unlawful imprisonment.
Just because you make sarcastic remarks, doesn't make them correct. You are both right and wrong about the situation. It is overdramatic "hysterical twits" that are wrong with our society today. It's also people like you, who think it's okay to "let it slide" for the sake of convenience.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
They need to tell their merchants that. I've been asked for ID several times in a few stores. They check if the signature on the sales receipt matches the card too.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
If the city of Boston had put five seconds thought into it, like oh, every single other city these signs were posted in, there wouldn't have been a problem. Even if they were bombs, they were too small to damage infrastructure and too far away from people to be anti-personal bombs. The cops did their jobs by checking out reports of a suspicious device. They did not do their jobs by seeing that it was harmless and then continuing to freak the fuck out. Note that these had been up for some time in major cities across the country, yet it was only Boston that blew their brains out over a non-issue.
YHBT HAND
I agree, he was being a pompous ass for not just showing the receipt
Since when does standing up for your rights make you a pompous ass?
Yes, with anarchy, ie without a ruler or rulers. Instead each person is sovereign.
FalconShould there be a Law?
No it doesn't - you must be that judge I argued w/when I didn't want to sit on a jury. The 5th "protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves" (e.g. fifth amendment). There's nothing that states explicitly or otherwise that another person, viz. a juror, can't weigh this unwillingness against them.
They are there to enforce, to the best of their knowledge, the law.
No, police are there to investigate crimes. And they aren't there to enforce a law they pulled out of their ass.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The problem is that the stores treat everyone like criminals throughout the buying process, and then when they leave, the store hassles them yet again. It would be much more efficient and less hostile at this point to implement the method that you mention and not hassle customers while they shop.
For example, I have bought two items at Best Buy recently and was irritated by the methods they used to protect their merchandise.
First, I needed to buy a copy of Office 2007 for work. When I got to the shelf, there was a huge display about the benefits of Office, but the shelves were empty. I asked one of the peons if they had sold out, and she told me that she just had to get one from the back. Almost ten minutes later, she came out with what I asked for. I asked why she had just wasted ten minutes of my life, and she responded that they had lost thousands of dollars of this product in the preceding weeks. How is that my problem? It's fairly obvious that employees are doing the stealing here - If the cashier doesn't deactivate the magnetic strip (and a big percentage of the time when they do), the alarm goes off when you leave. So it has to be employees giving them to friends after deactivating the strip, or walking out the back with them. Best Buy hiring thieves shouldn't affect my shopping experience.
Second, I went to buy a digital camera. I spoke with the peon and told her what I wanted. She proceeded to unlock a cabinet to get the camera. I took the box, and since I needed to buy one other item, I started to walk away. She stopped me and said that I needed to pay for the item right there and not up front. I asked her why, and she said to prevent shoplifting, essentially accusing me of trying to do so. This was a digital SLR in a decent-sized box, and I was wearing shorts and t-shirt, so I asked her where I could possibly put it. She just smiled and said sorry, you have to pay here. So I told here to hold it and I went to find my other item. About five minutes later, I returned, and wanted to pay for both items. So she unlocked the cabinet again to get the camera. I asked why she had to lock it up, and she said that she couldn't leave it out, ever. So I paid for both items, and she put them in a clear plastic bag (as opposed to the yellow ones) and physically sealed it with adhesive on the bag, then attached the receipt to the bag, making it extremely obvious that I had paid for whatever was in there. I went to the front to exit, and guess what? They wanted to see my receipt and inspect the bag!
How much more Soviet can you get?
I just buy stuff online now and make sure FedEx delivers it. Too many items with a high value get "lost" when you send them via UPS.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
Yea, what's really cheap is to roll over and die.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Did you really just equate "showing your receipt upon leaving a retail store" with death?
(PS: Refriend me.)
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Once again, I should remind the mods that disagreeing with someone is not an acceptable reason for modding someone down :)
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I agree, the cop acted inappropriately. But the cop wouldn't have even been there if the guy just showed his receipt. Two wrongs don't make a right. So stand up against the cop, but not for this guy.
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'your sort'? Aren't you making a lot of assumptions about him based on a post that made no mention of his political views?
It' wasn't just the one post he read, he wrote "Looking through your other posts, you're obviously no friend of civil liberties. A cursory glance shows you arguing in favor trial-free detention of non-Americans. Why your thinly veiled propaganda gets modded up is a mystery to me."
FalconShould there be a Law?
"Another prominent moral of the story, is don't go on a moral crusade while your family is nearby... To them your high horse is just a stinky farm animal, unfortunately. Siblings will cry, parents will bail you out of jail, but your wife will simply call you an idiot."
All this means is that your family is a bunch of arrogant groupthink idiots (that includes the wife) when you're standing up and protecting your rights and by extension theirs. If singular individuals won't fight when they are right, where will be those fine outstanding examples of proper citizenship to the children come from. This is an example of the bad things that are coming.
This guy is a hypocrite, some bluster but little balls. The rest of the family are sheep(drones) too afraid to fight at all and have too little intelligence to recognize harassment for what it is by fighting it at every instance. Fight it out to the end, that's how this country was made. Besides if going into court to protect our rights is that much of an inconvenience, those that have died didn't think so, then the country is a complete success and by definition of that success already lost.
If "high horse" has to be used then it means that standards have already collapsed.
By the way, if your wife calls you an idiot maybe you need a new wife.
The guy surrendered, he lost.The US Supreme Court disagrees with you:
Carter v. Kentucky
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
He talks about the need to show a drivers license to walk through a parking lot. He wasn't walking through a parking lot. He CALLED THE POLICE to come deal with HIS PROBLEM. Part of the police dealing with his problem was for them to identify him. He refused to provide identification. That's impeding the progress of a police investigation that HE ASKED FOR. That's against the law, and the officer showed him that in writing.
Further down, he claims he was arrested for not proving his "right to exist". As if a driver's license was proof of any such thing, or that the issue at hand was his "right to exist".
Of course the store has the right to inspect bags as they leave. It's their property. They have the right to ask you to leave your incoming bags at the front, too. Neither means that they are accusing you of anything. If you don't like their policy, don't shop there. Simple enough.
This guy ought to be arrested for wasting the police and court's time by being a deliberate jackass.
to minimize the danger that the jury will give evidentiary weight to a defendant's failure to testify... Note the inference that the jury might well give such weight, which danger is to be minimized as opposed to prohibited.
Don't forget - from a legal perspective, once you've served your sentence, you've paid your debt to society. You have the same rights and privileges as anyone else.
Actually this isn't true, at least for felony convictions. Felony ex-cons loose their right to vote. They can petition the state's governor to reinstate the right to vote but the governor doesn't have to do so.
Finally, shouldn't the circumstances of the crime dictate the charges? I.e., charge someone with attempted murder if they actually tried to kill someone? And charge them with battery if it was a simple beating they administered?
That's how it should be however prosecutors will sometimes reduce a charge because they know there's a chance they will lose if it goes to trial, which looks bad on a prosecutor's record. And sometimes a defendant will plead guilty to a reduced charge because they feel they will loose if it goes to trial as well.
Should there be a Law?
Either they haven't told their employees or they are ignoring the policy. I think it's a bogus policy, and merchants should be able to ask for ID as a basic measure to protect themselves, so I don't complain. If the card company doesn't like it, they should be the ones to eat a bad transaction.
However, if the merchant asks you for ID and the merchant is a prick, I wont have a problem ratting them out. For example, earlier this summer I stayed overnight at a casino's hotel for a concert held in their auditorium. I gave them a credit card number when I reserved the room, and paid with a check when I got the keys. The next morning they charged my card anyway. I had to call them twice and was this close to sicking Mastercard on them (they asked for ID when I paid with plastic when we ate at their restaurant) when they refunded my money.
Did you really just equate "showing your receipt upon leaving a retail store" with death?
For ease, yes. I don't know about you but to me it'd be easier to die than to live as a child that needs to have the government control me. I know it's not the state that is saying they want to see the receipt, in this case it was a store employee. However I find it easier to not shop at the store, than to put up with this.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Look at it from the cop's point of view, if this person is not cooperating then they have something to hide.
Except that obviously wasn't the case here. Asserting your legally protected rights is NEVER an admission of guilt. Unfortunately, uneducated toerags like yourself and the police officer in this case don't believe that's the case.
I can see that there is a fine distinction there, but I do think the intention is to remove the inference of guilt based on silence, while realizing that the juror may still do it anyway. The problem being that there really is no possible way to completely remove any such inference from the mind of the jury, even though it is not something which they should take into consideration.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
And sadly, it's extremely typical of how minor criminal charges are handled. The first line is usually the cop, whose job amounts to little more than hired muscle for the state; entrance requirements in terms of education are pretty low in most areas, and cops barely understand the law themselves, instead adopting an attitude of "arrest first and let the courts sort it out later".
Combine this with absolutely zero options or oversight from the citizenry and you already have a recipe for disaster.
A cop will therefore hassle a citizen based on a combination of hazy understanding of the law, bad mood, and whether or not he approves of the citizen's attitude. The charge is usually, in the grand scheme of things, fairly minor, but enough to cause a serious headache for the victim. For many things, an arrest will be involved, along with jailtime, bond money, and the embarassment of having to call friends and family to get you out, not to mention the retrieval of whatever confiscated or impounded property -- and the money involved in getting that back.
This is justice in America.
Your court date will roll around and you'll plead not guilty. A trial date will be set, meaning you'll have to schedule your life around that, and try to get a lawyer to help. The average person isn't expected to fully understand the law, because it's so nuanced and convoluted, which is why defense attorneys with years of specialized training exist. The average person is expected to fully abide by the law he doesn't understand, though, which may suggest a problem with the system, but nobody will question it during this process.
On your trial date you'll speak to some self-important prosecutor or solicitor who acts on behalf of the government. He'll treat your minor case like it's the crime of the century. Depending on your demeanor he may offer a deal of some sort, which usually entails you pleading guilty to a somewhat lessor offense. What he probably won't tell you is that if you reject this offer, and make him go through the hassle of an actual trial, he'll push for the maximum possible punishment the law allows, regardless of any circumstances up to that point.
This is justice in America.
If you take his deal, you've just pleaded guilty to an offense you may not have even committed, and is probably something so stupid no one should care even if you did do it, but you're intimidated into the plea by his legal jargon and the fact that, as an average Joe, you don't have the time, money, or resources devoted to fighting it. You'll pay a few hundred dollars in fines and be on your way, with an arrest record, a criminal history, and completely out the hundreds you spent for the bond, the fine, the impound, the attorney, and anything else. The state will pat itself on the back for a job well done for cleaning up the mean streets of dangerous scum like you.
If you don't take his deal you'll be put on trial. For minor offenses you may not even get a jury of twelve average Joes who will sympathize with you; the state has found a loophole and called this an "administrative matter", meaning you'll get tried by a judge, who will claim to be impartial but is on the state's payroll and has a vested interest in making sure things turn out in the state's favor, not to mention his clouded view of every person who appears before him as a criminal.
The judge will ignore everything you say, and your attorney will be mostly powerless since the time for deal-making is over and all he can do is try to object to the prosection's evidence. There will be little evidence to which he can object, though, since for most minor offenses there aren't any significant witnesses or material bits of evidence. Nothing but the policeman's word and charge on the books, often, and this will be taken as wholly sufficient to pronounce you guilty, whereupon you'll pay a huge fine, face possible jail time, and be in worse shape than you had you just meekly submitted instead of trying to assert your rig
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
You're talking about two different crimes, so why should the punishments be the same?
If you read about the shotgun incident, it seems plausible that pulling the shotgun was an act of self defense. A SINGLE white student was confronted by a GROUP of black students, including some of the same black students later involved in the beating. According to the white student, they yelled at him and began chasing him, and he ran to his truck to get his shotgun. Now maybe that's not right, but it IS undisputed that he was alone facing a group, and the group involved some of the same people who beat up another white student.
When you say he "pulled a shotgun" on the black students, you make it sound like the situation was reversed and he was just wielding his "white power" or whatever. But unless more details are revealed, it's definitely plausible that the situation was self defense.
There is NO plausibility that the Jena 6 beating up, again, a single white student can be construed as some simple crime. Think about it... six people beating up one person. Does that sound like an innocent schoolyard fight? No it's obviously a very serious crime. So suggesting that both were just "a crime", which implies crime of equal severity, and that only race was the reason for the difference in outcomes of the shotgun incident and the Jena 6 incident is dumb.
Umm, maybe the prior battery convictions let you realize that he isn't an innocent school kid who was provoked into fighting and the whole thing really isn't a big deal? Everybody's saying "Oh HOW could it be attempted murder? It's just a schoolyard fight!" but with that information in conjunction with the fact that the victim was beaten until he was unconscious... it's pretty obvious that he is a violent person and it's conceivable that it was more serious than a simple fight.
I'm certainly allowed to chase someone I suspect of stealing things from me... It may be stupid/dangerous for me to do so, but there is nothing illegal about it. Thieves are caught this way quite often, and nobody blames their victims for chasing them — when their suspicions prove to be correct, of course.
I can chase and tackle them even on the public street — and certainly so on my driveway (store manager caught up with Michael on the store's parking lot).
The guy and the store have different view of the shopping experience. Imagine the following:
The above is only slightly less outlandish than what actually happened. If you disagree with a firm's methods, don't do business with them (unless there is no competition, which is not the case here). Doing business under your own rules causes trouble for all concerned...
Police, of course, acted as the dirty scum they have to be to keep order, bogusly invoking a bogus law to cause enough trouble to "a troublemaker" (who has not done anything illegal) to make him less likely to cause (legal) trouble again.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Stealing from a person and shoplifting are very different matters. Unless I was the sole proprietor of a store I'd never care enough about merchandise to detain a shoplifter physically. I'd get his license plate number and notify the police. I'm concerned that the the Circuit City situation teaches us that it's okay to take the law into your own hands.
As for the cop, I definitely disagree with him. Righi was compliant with the cop for all his requests except his demand to produce identification. If American law sides with civilians on this matter then that's an important distinction and no one has the authority to revoke that right. Americans have the right to a relatively free society in general, but also to specific freedoms. That's what defines the character of a country.
All this being said, I myself have daydreamed about walking past receipt checkers but I can't be bothered. I'd rather take the path of least resistance on that matter. If it's my right to keep my receipt to myself then I'm content enough knowing this that I don't need to practise it. If the law is in my favour then I don't feel the need to test it.
... if you end up not changing a damn thing? This was so disappointing. Do you really think the police or the city are going to do one thing differently in the future because of Mr. Righi's actions?
"I don't know why I bothered to type this in."
There's nothing that states explicitly or otherwise that another person, viz. a juror, can't weigh this unwillingness against them.
There are many things the constitution doesn't explicitly state. That's what we have the judiciary for. They interpret the law. Griffin v. California was the case that determined the prosecution may not use your refusal to take the stand against you. The supreme court relied on their interpretation of the fourth, fifth and fourteenth amendments to arrive at this opinion.
I know you fancy yourself as smarter than the judiciary and the fact that the Constitution article III section 2 gives the supreme court appellate jurisdiction for all cases tried is insignificant next to your formidable intelligence in all constitutional matters. But still, the Supreme Court interprets the fifth in such a way that lack of testimony may not be used as evidence and the Constitution we live by says their opinion counts, yours not so much.
Kudos to the Judge, who was clearly better versed in the law than you.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Note the inference that the jury might well give such weight, which danger is to be minimized as opposed to prohibited.
There is no way to "prohibit" this unless you can read each Jurors mind. I think some 4th amendment nutjob would disapprove of such an invasion of the Jurors right to privacy.
The inference is that Juries are only supposed to weigh facts in evidence, but since they are imperfect human beings they may use facts not in evidence to arrive at a conclusion. This needs to be minimized.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
In Canada, law enforcement has the right to ask for I.D. I carry another I.D. seperate from my driver's license -- the provinical health insurance card. In this situation, I would have presented it, NOT my D.L., or any other incident that does not involve me operating a motor vehicle.
Why? Auto Insurance Rates. I don't want the police entering my D.L. # in some sort of database that the insurance companies have access too, resulting in a totally unjustified insurance rate increase or even a cancellation, for showing something not legally required.
Several kinds of vehicles don't need a driver's license. Bicycles, tractors, construction equipment, etc. You have to obey the traffic laws and provide ID when requested, but refuse to show the DL for the aforementioned reason. (Caution: Different laws may apply for DWI suspects; you can lose your DL even if you rode drunk in the street on your bicycle.)
I drive farm tractors on public roads frequently and if ever pulled over driving one would refuse to show DL, just my other "government" ID. This has also happened to railroad personnell involved in train / car collisions. In such situtaions, has long as RR procedures are met ( whistle blowing, flasing warning lights operating), a car that gets crashed into by a train is historically automatically at fault for the collision, since the railroads have a the right of way and it is the car driver's job to stay out the way of the train (same as running into stationary objects). Police require ID of the persons involved at the scene. Train engineer gives the cops his [car] driver's license for that purpose. Then the engineer finds his own personal auto insurance rates have gone up... because insurance company found out about the incident, for driving a machine that he didn't need a state-issued license for!!
The local BJ's store insists on seeing the receipt each time I exit the store. The even punch the receipt. Do they assume we are thieves and should we act accordingly?
Remember that the filing fee for small claims court is usually less than $50 and you can sue for up to $5000 in "pain and suffering" for security guards tacking you for doing nothing. This guy shouldn't sue the cops (who are judgment proof) he should sue Circuit City.
Just tell this to security guards to try to stop you: "You could tackle me, and then I'd beat your ass and sue the store. You will be out a job and the store will lose thousands of dollars. I make a living suing businesses, care to be next?"
This usually works. Apparently club stores, like Costco, operate under different rules You sign a contract explicitly agreeing to such searches when you get your membership. However, this does not mean that Costco has the right to tackle and arrest you for not showing your receipt. ALL they can LEGALLY do is take away your membership, since you violated the terms of the contract. That's it.
It's worse than that, they only ask for a receipt if they see you with a Circuit City bag (at least in NJ); ergo the assumption is that every paying customer is a thief. Hardly the sort of act to inspire customer loyalty.
Not sure I entirely agree.
The store came up with this system in order to cut down on shop-lifting. It's reasonable, but it's not backed by law, and the man took advantage of that.
Maybe the store needs a different system to discourage shop lifting. Maybe we need legislation that supports their current system, not sure how you would craft that.
As for the guy who tasered, he was sure annoying. Certainly he deserved it, but I'm not sure that the law can allow giving assholes the beating they so richly deserve.
Who else was a president (okay, I'll give a hint - there were 2 of them) that used GW as part of their monogram?
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
Couldn't your post have saved some space and bandwidth by just being shortened to:
/. trend (and well all know you're into being a sheep, right? so, go ahead and follow the trend).
I, for one, welcome our new jackbooted police-state thug overlords!
Straight to the point, lets us all know where your nose is, and even fits a
The cop might not even have been there if Righi didn't call 911 :).
As you said, I'm not standing up for the guy. But something else is broken somewhere...
Well, I guess they could ask people without a bag for a recipt - but who would give out the recipts that you didn't buy anything? I'm rather sure they cannot search your person if you do not have a bag and recipt...
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
ACLU Bustcard
There's one like it for photographers, The Photographer's Right. It's based on the Bust Card. It's recommended they carry it with them because a lot of photographers have been stopped and questioned if not have had their cameras taken while out shooting since 911. One student photographer at the college I was attend then was questioned while working on an assignment for a class. So naturally this became a big topic in the photo classes. Some made commends they didn't want to go out in public to shoot.
FalconShould there be a Law?
If they had simply said that they did believe he may have tried to shoplift, what would they have to lose? Would he have then needed to show the receipt, or did he have another nifty trick up his sleeve?
My only guess is that he would have to wait for the police and then ask to see evidence against him, and maybe counter-sue for harrassment later if it could be proven that there's no evidence.
By the way, anyone know if this applies to Canadians as well?
Your request for documentation sparked my curiosity, so I went looking... After half an hour of searching the 'net, it seems to be the case that Larry Craig has never mentioned homosexuals either in Congressional debate or in any publication. He has of course voted along with most of the Republican party and part of the Democratic party, against the best interests of homosexuals, but it looks to me like depictions of him as a hardcore gay-hater are quite inflated.
:-).
He's most likely just another "good ole boy" who is willing to sell the rights of gays down the river in exchange for some bubba votes back home and some mutual back scratching from his GOP colleagues. This makes his outing less of a story, and makes him less of a tragic villain. Probably so many exaggerations are flying around because we like to hear a good dramatic story, and the reality of the situation isn't all that engaging.
Not that homophobia in Congress isn't a bad thing, and not that he didn't participate in it with his votes, but Larry Craig wasn't at the center of it, and he was never Jerry Falwell's right-hand man. Maybe the next scandal will be more titillating
My truck is like a series of tubes.
Jesus, grow a pair, why don't ya?
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
Yes, read his blog. He states that he's done this several times before, and he knew what they were going to do. I'd have a completely different attitude if this guy innocently ran into the situation, but he did not.
Ok, sorry about my attitude then.
I wonder why he started it. People don't typically just start something like this on a whim.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Except that obviously wasn't the case here. Asserting your legally protected rights is NEVER an admission of guilt. Unfortunately, uneducated toerags like yourself and the police officer in this case don't believe that's the case. I have, on more than one occasion, flat out refused to even give my name to the police on the grounds that asking for my identity without probable cause fell under unlawful search and seizure. Basically told them that the only way I would provide that information was if I was under arrest, and since I was not under arrest, then I wasn't going to give it to them. Of course, they then suggested that maybe they could arrest me, but when push came to shove, there wasn't any valid reason for them to do so.
I had absolutely nothing to hide, I just don't particularly feel that the police should be allowed to go around asking me for my name when all I'm doing is exercising free-speech rights and protesting on a public sidewalk. It's the principle of the thing, and it's high time that American citizens started standing up for our rights while we still have them.
Eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines...
The police officer did not ask for identification, he asked for a driver's license from someone who was not operating a motor vehicle at the time.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I couldn't agree with you more... except on one little point.
There is, of course, another, darker reason: revisionism. Nazis did horrible things. So did their collaborators in other countries. It is less-than-honorable period in Germany's and many other countries history, so they'd rather pretend it never happened. I've heard that Japan has a similar problem with its own atrocities, often committed against the civilians of its empire: they simply aren't mentioned in history books.As a foreigner now living in Germany that also has a lot of contact with Japan, I can tell you you're half right. Japan does indeed seem to practice revisionist history in in it's schools and general attitudes. Germany however, I can assure you, does not. Most German schoolchildren know FAR more about the second world war than school children in any other country. They are taught about the horrible things done by horrible people, and they are taught about the great things done by great people. I would actually hazard a guess to say that it's LESS revisionist than elsewhere in the world. How many stories of greatness, goodness and heroism do you hear about the GERMAN side of world war 2? Yes, terrible things were done, and I would not and will not defend Germany for any of these terrible things... but I am more than ready to applaud the great men and women that were there and did amazing things.
On the other side of the same coin, how much do Americans and British learn about the atrocities committed by the allied soldiers during WW2? Such as gunning down groups of German prisoners because it's easier than taking them with you and processing them? Soldiers doing horrible things is neither a recent phenomenon nor ever only one-sided.
I've gotten slightly offtopic here I'm afraid. To get back to my main point, no, Germany does not practice revisionist history. It is not proud of its past, but it realises that one of the best ways to stop it happening again is to teach about it. Yes, it is illegal here for me to goose-step down the street waving a swastika on a flag and yelling "Heil Hitler"... But not because people want to suppress the memory of it - simply that they understand how dangerous words and actions can be - especially when there are still people alive today that remember when it happened. I would not be surprised if, in 50 to 100 years, those laws no longer exist here in Germany. (If Germany as a country still exists rather than a "state of the EU", but that's another topic!)
The vast majority of people under the age of 35 have an attitude that basically says, "Yes, our country screwed up. Yes, they did horrible things that are inexcusable. BUT, can we please just get over it now and move on? Don't forget it, but stop focusing on it and realise that there's more to Germany than events from 60 years ago.". And I agree with them - shall we hold modern America responsible for mass slavery of Africans? Or shall we hold Australia responsible for treating the aboriginal people like animals and shooting them for sport? Or shall we hold Spain responsible for the Spanish Inquisition? All of these are longer ago, that's true, but at some point, you just have to move on.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
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He didn't do it in 'publications' or in Congress. He did it in his campaigns, every time he's been asked about rumors he's gay.
However, yes, at least he's not an insane hypocrite running around proposing restrictions on gays. And I think we can assume the 'I'm not one of those horrible gay people' claims were based on the fact he actually is and was in denial.
He's not, say, Vitter, who found it necessary to protect marriages because he was visiting hookers.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Oh, and he deserves props for, back in 1994, not supporting an Idaho voter initiative to ban gay marriage. (Among other horrible things on it.) It didn't make any different, it was for the voters to decide, but he (mildly) came out against it.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
[quote]Stupid? He's doing what he should do in that situation. If I'm anywhere and six guys of ANY color start to threaten me, believe I'm grabbing my Sig. Pointing it at them is a different story, however. "Instead of leaving the scene to avoid a conflict" ?? Fuck you. This is a free country and we're allowed to be in public places without being threatened to leave. Nobody runs me off a place I have every legal right to be, period.[/quote]
You are an idiot.
Feeling threatened is not an excuse to leave the scene, go get a weapon and return to the scene. In fact, you are obligated under law to withdraw from a violent confrontation if it is at all possible. You are the type of gung-ho redneck idiot that gives the rest of Americans a bad name. "He done gave me a dirty look -- I'ma go get mah gun!".
If you feel threatened and have no means of withdrawing from a situation, you can take various actions in your defense and claim it as "self defense". What you CAN NOT do is wander off to get a weapon and then return. You are making the situation worse and you are no longer acting in self-defense, but antagonizing and provoking the situation, just as this kid clearly did. This kid WANTED a confrontation. They didn't threaten him. He just said he FELT threatened. "Feeling" threatened isn't an excuse to whip out a shotgun on someone.
It's unfortunate that there is a large swath of our society that spews ignorant bullshit like you do, but it surely does exist.
If the accountant can write AND sign checks, what would stop writing checks to the bogus business run by their spouse? If the cashier doesn't get checked, what would stop the cashier's spouse from pasting the UPC barcode for a box of diskettes over the UPC for a 700 MB disk drive (to later be sold on eBay)?
Sure, eventually the inventory or cash balances aren't going to match - and some sort of twice-checking will have to be implemented.
So would you shop at a place that made you go through the register twice? Would you shop at the place where everything over $100 dollars was purchased through a slip of paper with the barcode (and then at the door, an inventory clerk brings the item to you from the warehouse (which still needs twice checking, in case the inventory clerk is the thief))?
My point is: protecting against theft from insiders is generally implemented by forcing the insiders to collaborate against the anti-theft system. If you can figure out a better way to for stores with expensive items to protect themselves, I'm sure the stores would love to hear it.
Because the alternative is to just let the theft happen, and raise the price of the goods to cover the loss. The honest people then subsidize the thieves.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
If defending liberty is "liberal", why do conservatives hate liberty so much?
The ACLU doesn't defend liberty. It harasses small towns into forking over hundreds of thousands of dollars to make them go away. Let's really check a list of lawsuits:
http://www.floppingaces.net/2005/10/13/aclu-wackiness/
Please, tell me how freedom is maximized when you have an organization tearing down religious symbols. They don't.
Finally, the ACLU itself believes that WE DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS.
The ACLU therefore believes that the Second Amendment does not confer an unlimited right upon individuals to own guns or other weapons nor does it prohibit reasonable regulation of gun ownership, such as licensing and registration.
The ACLU agrees with the Supreme Court's long-standing interpretation of the Second Amendment [as set forth in the 1939 case, U.S. v. Miller] that the individual's right to bear arms applies only to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia. Except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected
So there, a classic liberal organization - oppressing the majority, and depriving everyone of their right to keep and bear arms.
And, don't even get me started on vouchers, bussing, and other matters. The ACLU has consistenly violated the rights of the majority and their elected officials.
This is my sig.
This is not true -- the expectation of behavior in private establishments open to the public is already established in case law and there is absolutely NO legal recourse that enables circuit city to force the customer to produe his receipt. I don't know why you continue insisting along the lines of your wacko theory that people should just do what they're told.
Plus, he was arrested OUTSIDE circuit city, so there goes your theory.
Rudd-O - http://rudd-o.com/
Depends mostly on how you stand up for your rights, not the fact that you do. The guy explained in his own blog that he was deliberately ignoring the people and didn't offer any explanation to the store employees or the cop about why he didn't acquiesce to the requests that he show his receipt.
If he had just said, "look, you have no authority to do this and I am not obligated to show you the receipt" then I doubt there would have been a problem. But he was deliberately being confrontational by not explaining his situation. When the cop arrived, he also did not offer "anything but my name" and was again, deliberately being confrontational.
I'm not saying the guy did a bad thing by standing up for himself. Quite the opposite, I like to do it the same way, but I'm more polite about it and it seems to work wonders. I don't get hassled, and I certainly don't get arrested, but I also don't give up my rights either.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
You would not care, but you'd have a full right to. That's my point — there is nothing outrageous about the store's policy. That's where I (respectfully) disagree with Michael, who thinks such policies somehow violate Constitution and turn us all into slaves. Or something.
I do to. I think, I was quite explicit about it.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.