Posted on 01/23/2015 1:29:57 PM PST by BenLurkin
A woman is suing Target, alleging her son committed suicide after being forced to take part in a humiliating disciplinary event in front of co-workers and customers at the Pasadena store where he worked as a cashier.
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Her son jumped to his death from the roof of the Courtyard Marriott in Monrovia on July 18, three days after he was required by Target management to take part in what the suit calls a “walk of shame.”
According to the complaint, police and store security met Graham Gentles immediately as he arrived for work, and, at the direction of two members of store management, was handcuffed and led before other store employees to an office.
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He was questioned in the office, then later taken to the police station, according to the lawsuit. However, he was later released and never charged with any crime, according to the complaint.
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“The walk of shame is a Target policy to purposely cause shame, embarrassment and emotional distress to any Target employee who is suspected of stealing from Target,” the suit states. “The policy consists of employees being arrested and paraded in handcuffs through the Target store in full view of co-workers and customers.”
(Excerpt) Read more at losangeles.cbslocal.com ...
““The walk of shame is a Target policy to purposely cause shame, embarrassment and emotional distress to any Target employee who is suspected of stealing from Target,” the suit states. “The policy consists of employees being arrested and paraded in handcuffs through the Target store in full view of co-workers and customers.”
That’s the allegation of the litigant. They didn’t quote the policy itself. I wonder if there is such a policy.
Bah!
You are right about that.
I don’t really understand that, even though I tend to think that it is a stretch to hold target liable for this man’s choice of action, I would certainly weigh all evidence and apply any laws as justly as I could.
Well I can understand why a store would make a display of an employee being arrested or detained for theft to other employees.
I don’t that that such an action is designed to humiliate the person under arrest, but to demonstrate to other employees the consequence of theft.
I am not opposed to such a thing, but I would make sure I had my evidence squared away before I would do something like that.
False accusations are no good either, not saying that this was a false accusation, because I just don’t know.
Seriously their system isn't even that competent. It is one of their main reasons for lost sales. It shows inventory they don't have. Now I know they have persons who go by with the scanner and scans the shelves bar-codes and looks at the shelf. I have seen items missing for up to weeks at a time. I go get a worker to inquire about the product and they bring the scanner to the shelf and click on the item. Then they tell me there are X amount of it there on the shelf. I say OK show me. LOL. Opps. Well the system says right here there are so many of the item on the shelf. I say Ok that's great now show me. That's when it gets fixed.. Sometimes that is. It's a corporation wide issue.
Then what follows is worse. Their magical inventory system shows item X isn't selling anymore and it is discontinued due to lack of sales. LOL. Don't get me wrong I know they have a huge theft problem. But they strain at it and ignore the obvious. If you don't have it on the shelf you can't sell it. My grandson just bought A $40 X-Box 350 game today at a Walmart and it showed not in stock at store On Line. He got the last one because he went to see. On some items to avoid driving all around the county I too look on-line to see if a store has it and it irks me when it shows a product there that isn't.
never heard that
Firing and having an employee arrested for a suspected crime is punishment enough. What is with the “walk of shame” crap? Ten minutes of hate? Fascists.
He had not even been convicted of a crime! All this misery from self righteous a holes who pay minimum wage. Wish I could be on the jury.
I’ve noticed that most Chinese restaurants that I’ve been to don’t ring up the buffet price, they ring up zero, take your money, give you your change and move on. I bet they don’t claim 3/4 of what they take in.
I’m young enough to have missed dunce caps, lol! Kids were perhaps tougher in the old days. Yes, I agree, when cops get involved, the situation changes.
because I just don’t know.
It seems the lad most likely had problems that he could not deal with and this may not have had anything to do with the suicide.
There are over 4 million story`s in L.A and this is just a few minutes of one of them,I wonder what we would see if we could see the story of his entire life.
Having worked in law enforcement, there is a lot of information missing from the story. First, the information was taken from the mother’s law suit complaint, which is hardly an unbiased record of events.
Most of the time when a store such as Target, WalMart and others call the police, it is to transport the suspect to jail.
The store’s security officer fills out a report, calls the cops and when the cops arrive they have two options. If the amount of the theft is a misdemeanor, they can check the subject for additional warrants, and if there are some, then transport the subject to jail.
If the suspect has no warrants, the police may have the option to issue a summons to appear at a later date.
Since this subject was employed as a cashier, it is possible Target had him on tape dipping into the till. Because of his medical condition and his confrontation with another employee earlier, the police may have been there at the outset to insure there wasn’t a disturbance when the subject was confronted by Target loss prevention.
As for the handcuffs. Most departments have procedure that an individual being transported is handcuffed to make sure he doesn’t escape or become a safety issue for the transporting officer. Even with a shield in the car, our department procedure called for all suspects to be handcuffed.
As for not being charged, it is possible the young man committed suicide before the prosecutor filed charges. The store security is responsible for filing the affidavit, not the police. Usually, if the amount is high enough to be a felony, it would require talking with a prosecutor.
As I said, there is too much missing from the story. A good reporter would have pulled the crime report (which accompanies the suspect) to get the FACTS of the case rather than rely on the plaintiff’s complaint (lawsuit) which is always written in such a way as to cast the defendant (Target) in the worse possible light.
Hmmm, I have not noticed that, but you could very well be right.
I can’t imagine what makes a man come to the decision to end his life at 22.
What circumstances existed to cause him to view death as the better circumstance?
Truly there must be more going on.
I knew a young man in high school who killed himself at the age of 15 by way of a car engine being on in a closed garage.
I have always wondered what at such a young age could cause this.
Sadly, as an adult now I can think of any number of terrible circumstances that could lead to this.
Bingo.
And that is the point which causes the divisions on this thread.
A lot of people are all for use of armed force of the thinnest of evidence. In this case, on allegations from a coworker who had had an argument with the clerk ant a bar. Violence before investigation when there was no likelihood of the person leaving?
That is not freedom.
It also is not reational.
Wow, thank you, I really appreciate the in depth information you provided.
I too think there is information omitted here.
Further, it does not seem to me that this incident as reported in this story describing his arrest at Target and then his later release without charges at the police station would result in his jumping to his death three days later.
I can’t reasonably see where that could be the sole cause of such an action.
You don’t need to catch them in the act. Having the incident on video is good enough to sit down and have a conversation with the associate. That conversation is where an admission of theft is obtained in addition to a signed admission statement by the associate.
I worked for Target for several years in Asset Protection ranging from in a single store to stores throughout multiple states doing both external theft investigations and internal theft investigations. I can say for certain that the way this incident is described is not Target policy. Before even speaking with an associate we needed solid evidence ranging from point of sale documentation to CCTV video. We also needed to provide a synopsis of our case to HR and recieve approval to interview the associate before conducting the interview. We only interviewed associates we knew without a doubt committed the theft. Law Enforcement typically was not contacted until after the interview.
As for the walk of shame, interviews were typically conducted in a Store Managers office as it was considered a more nuetral environment than the Asset Protection office. How long that walk was and how many other associates or customers witnessed it was completely dependent upon the location of that office. The route chosen was always the shortest route available. Associates were never paraded around the store and in the majority of cases the associates were simply issued a citation by Law Enforcement and released after their employment was terminated. The policies on this were very clear, strict, and enforced.
With that said, if there was no in store Asset Protection team then this simply could have been a Store Manager acting outside of company policy and making a very poor set of decisions.
It’s very sad that this individual took his own life. I would expect that there had to be more going on in his life than just that single incident which caused him to do this. Permanent solution for a temporary problem. Very sad.
If Target did that then they should be sued just for being A-holes
Sadly, as an adult now I can think of any number of terrible circumstances that could lead to this.
I read a bunch of reviews written by target employees, the complaints covered every thing from accusations of theft to rest break violations.
But here is an employees summation of what most reviews agree with.
its management “team” is only qualified with several of the following negatives: exploiting cheap labor, bullying, satisfying their greed, false sense of entitlement, favoritism, inability for human compassion, and self righteous.
There were very few reviews in favor of target, but to be fair many of the written reviews although written by people with a college education was written more like a third grader.
And since this comes from one who barely got through the seventh grade you can see my point.
So it seems to be a two way street but I would say the lack of management is a big problem.
Maybe the problem is management in the sense that many people who work in retail do it with little previous work experience. They don’t understand the concept of manager and subordinate.
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