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."
snip
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."
snip
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.
snip
Cold blooded murder plain and simple.
Next, the guard must ask the suspect to return the stolen item.
If a suspect tries to flee, handcuffs can be used for restraint.
Jessica Moser, a corporate spokeswoman, said that although shoplifting policies vary from store to store, under no circumstances do any of the policies allow guards to kick a suspect.
"We don’t want to make a scene," Moser said. "We accompany them to a private office in the store and then fill out paperwork. Our utmost priority is the safety of the employees and the customers. If they have a weapon, we just call police. If we can stop them, then we do."
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I would imagine that WalMart policy also forbids killing a suspected shoplifter....
Whatever happenned to "No shoes, No shirt, No Service" anyway?
Jeeeez
Oh pulease, murder, they subdued a thief.
You're damned right I blame the Wally Word employees. They're the ones that held this guy down while he pleaded for his life, and killed him anyway. I don't give a flying ____ what he stole, it didn't warrant this slow and painful murder.
I might think twice about standing my ground if Chuck and his five little housewares minions were coming after me with handcuffs.
I've worked at Walmart...you can tell which employees to watch out for by how ultra-enthusiastic they get at the morning Church of Sam worship service. Those that have been born again into the church of Sam and have given their hearts and souls willingly over to the Walton legacy are scary as hell.
13 years later, those meetings are nothing more than a pain when everyone is testifying to the lord Sam rather than checking out my fishing line so I can make the beepers go off again.
Cite it.
And since the pavement was hot, one can presume it was not nightime, so your statutory defense fails right off the bat.
I doubt their intent was to kill him.
No.
In my case I made no attempt to run, I just was not going to let them close and get physical control of me as they were trying to do. I stepped back into the store and they still were trying to set me up for a wrist lock or arm hold while I was digging for my receipt. It was only when he made eye contact with me and I dropped the bag in anticipation of going hands on that he backed off. At that time in my life I was still a full time deputy SO and if they managed to make contact i would have had to escalate the force used to avoid an unlawful detention
ATTENTION Walmart Shoplifters....
>>"Loss prevention employees"? Wow, what a euphemism!<<
Loss prevention = Hired guns.
Murder is when you intentionaly kill someone, they had every right to subdue him, the guy died, TS, he shouldn't have stole and the dollar amount doesn't matter.
I'm in Texas, and I'd gladly convict the creeps that killed this guy as he was pleading for his life.
What's your point? At the least, they are liable civily for his death. At the most, they committed manslaughter.
Besides, you have a witness who is telling them that the guy is having problems and the walmart commandos blow him off....that ain't gonna play well in front of a Texas jury.
They didn't kill him, he died because of his own actions. They had every right to pursue and subdue him.
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