Posted on 09/03/2007 3:19:20 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
Btw, I did just a little research on this one before answering, and recieved my answer from an attorney just this eve. If the law allows the police to ask you for your identity, by extension they are allowed to verify said identity. The overly literal reading of the law that you need only state your identity, not prove it would be thrown out of any court of law in short order. To quote the attorney friend I spoked with, “The law sometimes lacks common sense, but it hasn’t deserted it entirely.”
Is said attorney referring to Ohio law? It explicitly forbade requiring ID, it wasn't implied. Not every state has such a law.
Ah, bummer. I guess I'll have to take this nickname out and make some money with it. Although I'd be interested in seeing those precedents if you've got them handy.
The pertinent part of Ohio's "stop and identify" law was posted earlier:
2921.29 (C) Nothing in this section requires a person to answer any questions beyond that person’s name, address, or date of birth. Nothing in this section authorizes a law enforcement officer to arrest a person for not providing any information beyond that person’s name, address, or date of birth or for refusing to describe the offense observed.I think it's obvious that verbally covers the requirement due to "answer questions." Those three elements must only be provided, and showing a license provides more information than the law allows the officer to demand.
if not, then a decent cop can absolutely articulate that he had PC to take the deft into custody. the totality of the circumstances would preclude me from taking this guy at his word.
The problem is here the man was suspected of no crime at the time of the arrest. Not only was he not suspected, he had been cleared of any suspicion of a crime just moments before. It would probably be different had they found shoplifted goods in his bag, because any demands would be subsequent to an arrest, which likely changes the rules.
The officer had no cause to arrest him, just as he can't walk up to you on the street with no suspicion of a crime, demand ID ("Papers, please, comrade!"), and arrest you for not producing it. This answers the question of was he just supposed to let him go, and it's YES. I question him letting go the two people who were committing the misdemeanor of unlawful detainment when he arrived.
you don't call the cops for help and then refuse to help with your own situation.
The cop obviously switched sides, instead of protecting the citizen who called 911 for help, he decided to help those who were unlawfully detaining the citizen. I wouldn't be too helpful either.
Very interesting. Smart manager to tell the truck to pull away. He may have overstepped store policy just a touch, but he was smart enough to know not to become a criminal himself and expose his store to civil liability.
The link brought up an interesting aspect of the checks, as they do catch mistakes to the customer’s advantage. If you refuse the check, you also refuse the chance for this last-minute oversight of the cashier. Your chances for correction are not as good once you leave the store.
Sorry, didn’t mean to say it forbade requiring ID itself, but any information beyond what is in the law. Any reasonable person must agree that an ID is much more information than name, address and DOB, and thus more information than the law allows.
You’ve never been slandered, just pinned to the wall despite your best attempt to weasel out of your defenses of green party leftists, foreign criminals, and free US technology for the world at large.
BTW the ACLU needs your help on some other threads tonight:
ACLU Accuse Long List Of War Crimes On American Troops
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1891227/posts
Documents Show Troops Disregarding Rules (ACLU Barfer)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1890843/posts
ACLU Docs Show Troop Abuses (ACLU works for the enemy in Iraq)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1891235/posts
bottom line: this guy chose a fight to which he knew arrest could have been an outcome. and he chose to do it in front of his family. stupid.
cops aren't really in the habit of being called to the scene and having the complainant tell you the law and what you must do. that's not how it works. i am sure the cop would have been more than happy to tell the guard and whoever else from the store to go to hell had this guy shown even a modicum of respect. but no. he had to fight every person on the scene to prove his point.
right or wrong, we'll see. but i just can't second guess the cop right now because of some ambiguous law and an obviously self-obsessed know-it-all who wants to be a street-lawyer.
http://www.die.net/musings/bestbuy/
Great link and an excellent example of why carrying an MP3 player that records and a cell phone camera is a good idea. Even acting like you have one will cause bubbas like he describes to wet their pants.
In my recent incident I whipped out my digital camera and started taking pictures...really sent them for a loop. Set the DJ to record as well.
I don't see any truthfulness exception in that law. It states clearly what the person must provide and does not put any other conditions. It doesn't state what method he must provide it in; therefore we must assume any reasonable method is acceptable, including speech or sign language if he's deaf. You really are stretching it here. If the law said he can't be forced to show identification, you'd say he wasn't asking for identification, but a driver's license, so the request was within the law.
this guy chose a fight to which he knew arrest could have been an outcome
People fighting for their civil rights tend to do that, yet we all benefit from their sacrifice.
i am sure the cop would have been more than happy to tell the guard and whoever else from the store to go to hell had this guy shown even a modicum of respect.
From the article it appears he was perfectly respectful and compliant (including handing over the bag for a search) right up until the cop demanded ID. The cop just got mad because he didn't bend over and take an illegal demand like a good little sheeple.
I think store manager and his blue shirted mental midgets went over the line. Had Hiro taken photos or recorded any of it, he could have filed criminal and civil complaints and get the store management relieved for cause.
Its going to be really interesting to see how many geek copycats follow this recent vic’s lead on this, esp at CC. Not quite a flash mob, but I could see some college kids having fun with it.
Let me change that last sentence a bit. On re-read it appears the officer might have thought he was able to demand ID, as he was saying that’s what the arrest was for. That the charge turned out to be something different to me says he found out he couldn’t, so charged him with the generic obstruction charge. That’s not as bad, as it means the arrest wasn’t a purposeful violation of the citizen’s rights.
It could be the problem is education in the police department, and an officer who was unwilling to admit a mistake and went through with filing baseless charges.
If I worked at a store, you couldn’t make me follow a suspected shoplifter outside.
That is because you are rationale and sentient...something many of the bubbas working loss prevention are not. The real pros in the field are few and far between. There is good training available but either the stores do not present it or it goes in one ear and out the other. I tend to think the latter is the case given the litigious society we live in.
This isn’t a Constitutional issue, it is basic contract law. The store has a right to set whatever terms and conditions it deems appropriate in the sale of its merchandise. They should have (and I suspect most do) signage indicating that all sales are subject to verification by receipt on exit. The potential customer can either accept the policy or go elsewhere. If they refuse the store’s conditions at the exit door then no contract has been formed and executed and the goods have been removed from the premises without authorization despite having been paid for.
Payment is only one of the elements of a contract and all must be met before a sale is final.
I do believe there was a Supreme Court ruling that I paraphrase which states that the store has to have probable cause to detain someone which was defined by the court as first hand knowledge that a theft has occured. This evidence can be a witnessed theft or a video tape/digital record that shows a possible theft has taken place. The store manager had no evidence of this occuring.
While this is interesting, like someone else said, this is not the hill top that I would choose to fight the war that occured.
I'm just thinking survival. Stores don't pay enough for me to risk my life for their profits.
The real pros in the field are few and far between.
It's a sad fact of our "I want it the cheapest" society. Remember real store detectives who wandered the aisles and knew all the tricks of the shoplifters? Remember the beat cop who knew everybody in the neighborhood and could spot anything out of place? Hell, remember the cashier who could figure his own change?
IMHO, the issue at hand is rather fundamental, and is probably why such strong volition has been expressed by multiple parties.
What are the material consequences of the entire affair? Nothing really.
The merchandise was paid for, so no theft occurred.
IMHO, the entire affair touches upon the issue of volition and the respect of the volition of another person.
The processing of transactions is one of the oldest studies in human history. The transaction is probably the first step building upon human volition involving material goods. It recognizes how two persons are able to respect the volition of one another and perform the ownership exchange of a particular commodity. This basic notion is at the root of contract law. It also is at the basis of the Uniform Commercial Code, which recognized that most people seek to transact daily on multiple items, where the procedures of transactions might be formalized and simplified as best possible to meet the most good for all arties involved, while respecting their volition and rights.
The heart of this affair is based upon one party believing they had completed all they had been obligated to perform in completing a transaction, while the other party believed additional steps were required.
The store, in effect, treats the store real estate as the environment of their transactions and has attempted to required passage out of that store to implement a search of all persons leaving the store.
The store might implement that search selectively, when they identify somebody leaving the store with an object they normally sell in the store. As proof of ownership, they ask to see the receipt, as a record of the purchase transaction, thereby verifying the ownership of the property leaving the store property. If they physically prevent the customer from leaving, then technically, they are detaining him and in some states meet the legal definition of arresting the person in their verification process.
IMHO, the heart of the issue regards how merchants allow the public to enter and leave their premises. The customer probably felt the transaction had been completed and the receipt check was a voluntary search which he wasn’t obligated to accept. From the guard’s perspective, the customer leaving met minmal conditions for the profile of a shoplifter as store policy defined it. From the store manager’s perspective, all customers fall into a routine where they are all voluntarily searched as their verification process to combat shoplifting and may have confused the second search transaction as being a necessary component of any purchase transaction.
In all situations, we have an issue of respecting the volition of all parties not being fully respected.
The customer respected his volition by refusing an offer for a voluntary search, while the guard perceived the receipt search to be mandatory as the person leaves the store.
This appears to be the crux of the conflict. One perceives the search as voluntary, the other perceives the search as mandatory. Situation then escalates to unlawful detention from the perspective of the customer and to a shopkeeper’s arrest from the perspective of the store.
There might be a number of mechanisms to prevent such a conflict including:
1) Floor Plan shaping to allow the cashier act as the final security checkpoint, thereby completeing the transaction verification at the time of purchase.
a) Some argue the major source of theft is from employees themselves, so the physical security aspect is maintained by the perimeter receipt search.
2) Changing the transaction culture to double the transaction process, 2 queues instead of one, one to buy the item, one to verify those physically departing own the item.
a) I suspect this may be the strategic issue involved. IMHO, somebody is contriving these issues to maneuver the population into accepting a different operational flow in consumer culture. This may be a precursor to automated transaction processes and separating the transaction from physical security. (Mark of the Beast ping)
It’s interesting that the ACLU is so immediately involved. Almost as if a contrived situation had been developed.
I find that so funny too. They herd you through this maze to their checkout counters, and then you can only leave after having gone through there. With a big screen HD TV, it seems pretty ridiculous to think that you slipped it past the clerks.
Which is another one of the main reasons I'm not buying it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the whole thing was staged, if not a complete fabrication, in fact I'd say that's quite probable considering it's the ACLU we're dealing with. Others such as the creator of this thread obviously feel otherwise, and not only trust the ACLU on such matters but begin making calls up there and creating threads here to show their full attention and support. To see them then attempt to claim they're somehow a "conservative" supporter of the ACLU is just further proof of the dishonesty that's being exposed.
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