Posted on 08/23/2005 10:47:25 AM PDT by JamesP81
A Cleveland man died last Sunday after a scuffle with security guards at the Walmart Super Center located at 6626 FM1960 in Atascocita.
According to witnesses, Stacy Driver ran out of the store and was pursued by Walmart loss prevention employees. A short time later, Driver was dead, and the Walmart employees were trying to explain the last moments of his life to police.
Charles Portz said he was getting out of his car when he saw a heavy blonde haired man being chased by five people who appeared to be security or store employees. He said he saw them wrestling the man to the ground. "The blacktop was extremely hot," said Portz "He had no shirt on and they wouldn't let him up off the blacktop."
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According to Portz, Driver began to plead with them men. "He's begging, 'Please call an ambulance, let me up, do something, I'm gonna die," said Portz. He said the loss prevention employees called the police more than once, but another bystander called for an ambulance after realizing Driver was in trouble. Portz said he eventually began to plead with the Walmart employees. "I told them, this guy doesn't look like he's breathing," Portz said, "They said, 'He's all right."
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The store employees could not have known that the witness who was pleading with them to let Driver get up from the hot pavement was a high profile Houston attorney, from the Portz and Portz law firm.
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Given that the guy was already in custody and immobilized, there were no longer any fears about recovery of lost items, nor any danger of harm from the perpetrator.
Given that it took 20+ minutes for this guy to die in custody, and given the responses of the guards, negligent homicide charges would seem to be justified here.
And you base this conclusion on what, exactly?
Wal-Mart will settle this. If they can't get a bunch of conservatives to agree that what happened here was okay, how do you think this case will play out in front of a jury composed of a cross-section of the community?
Dead shoplifter. Deep pockets defendant. Crying mother. You do the math.
Look, the perp stole merchandise, he ran when confronted, he died while being subdued. The state of Texas looks up to property owners and supports them. This scumbag with his extensive record, or his family, will never collect a dime.
Now you are just making things up.
Oh, yeah, that's a brilliant idea. What could possibly go wrong then?
Yes, he is a scumbag, and apparently is a scumbag with a record.
His family, if he has one, is about to become wealthy. In any state in the union. Even in Texas.
Sure. And the Texas laws cited on this thread seem to show that Wal-Mart is in trouble since its employees went beyond what was allowed by those statutes.
This scumbag with his extensive record, or his family, will never collect a dime.
The first thing you need to do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.
What, exactly, am I making up?
He was not in custody, per se, this is not a law enforcement issue. This was a private company subduing and recovering stolen property waiting on LEO to arrive at the scene. Now, if LEO had held this guy down on the pavement for 20 minutes that would be a different story.
You dear friend are the one in the proverbial hole.
This is not a law enforcement issue, but he was in custody.
This was a private company subduing and recovering stolen property waiting on LEO to arrive at the scene.
He was already subdued. Once someone has been subdued, your right to use deadly force against them goes away.
Now, if LEO had held this guy down on the pavement for 20 minutes that would be a different story.
Not really.
Here is a scenario for you, you are at home, you look out to your back yard and you see some one stealing your tools out of your shop, you confront the guy and get him on the ground. since you weigh 250# and the perp only weighs 130 you sit on him while you call the cops on your cell phone, when the cops get there 20 minutes later the guy is dead, are you now a murderer?
By being constrained on the ground, this fellow met none of the criteria for use of deadly force. Wal-mart is in trouble.
This is the website of the Texas Commission for Law Enforcement Standards and Education. Specifically, this is the page addressing use of force issues. It pretty much destroys every argument you have attempted to make, and since it contains so much information, I'll just post the cite. You can go look at the caselaw cited therein.
You were the one saying they were untrained. Now you are saying they went through state mandated training? I am confused.
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