RAID ON KMART PARKING LOT (HOUSTON) LEAVES SHOCK, ANGER

The Houston Chronicle ^ | 19 August 2002 | Ron Nissimov

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

What is the straight-A student from Waller High School (Northwest of Houston) doing at the K-Mart parking lot at 12:30 a.m.?

[Petronski]

Reminds me of life in the Soviet Union, except here, someone's getting sued.

[Fixit]

Brandi Ratliff, 18, who said she was a straight-A student at Waller High School and never had any problems with the law.

She's 18 years old.

She can be anywhere she chooses, so long as she is still in the United States of America.

[crz]

I agree! But for the benefit of the doubt...why did they not split them up and tell them to get home? Again, for the benefit of the doubt, I would imagine they have been having problems with kids hanging around there and raising hell at all hours of the night. But arresting them was a little much...arrresting them and calling their parents to come down and get them would have been about right. More to this story than whats been reported I bet.

[TN4Liberty]

Buying school supplies?

[bandlength]

if that had happened here in good ol' rottenchester ny, they would just close down the kmart because of the "nuisance"laws on the books.

[stainlessbanner]

What are 425 kids doing at a k-mart parking lot after midnight?!

[joesnuffy]

Rosie told her to shop there and buy Martha Steward brand made in china by little ole men with one kidney houseware

[FITZ]

I guess if they were on private property and the owner didn't want them there, something had to be done. It's a weird story because it has honor students and 10 year olds having dinner with their dad at 12:30 am.

[JoeSixPack1]

Shopping centers across the country are late-night gathering places for the "too young to drink, but old enough to drive" crowd. It's been the acceptable place for decades. But with a # as large as 450 teens it was probably too much for the manager to accept so he turned the local gestapo loose on them. It seems they were more than happy to act on his request.

[hopespringseternal]

A lot of these parents ought to be kicked in the 'nads for letting their school age kids stay out that late the night before the first day of school.

Having said that, this sounds like the work of Houston's (not) finest. I remember the first time I met a Houston cop. He had known me for thirty seconds before he started bragging (lying) about all the people he had killed. I do think there are more serious problems than teenagers out too late to tend to in Houston.

K-mart must be trying to go out of business. Having your shoppers arrested is NOT the best way to drum up business.

[Damocles]

I think a better question is why are police ARRESTING a freakin' 10 year old!! What the #$%^ is the matter with their reasoning.

That particular case could get ugly for the PD.

[Petronski]

What are 425 kids doing at a k-mart parking lot after midnight?!

Ever since release of "The Fast and the Furious," kids have been buying up old Honda Civics and hang all sorts of gaudy chrome wings and neon lights on them, then hanging out after dark in parking lots. They are known in some circles as 'ricers' because they are more interested in making their Asian cars LOOK fast, rather than modifying them so they actually GO fast.

Without photos, it's impossible to know for sure. However, it sounds to me like these kids were ricers.

[Former Proud Canadian]

You are right except the Kmart parking lot is private property. Obviously they had complained to the police about the gathering of young people and the police responded. Trespassing is a crime and Kmart was asserting its property rights.

[genefromjersey]

Quite obviously, if they were on the lot at the time they were arrested, they were trespassing.QED.

[Cap'n Crunch]

Good work Houston PD!

[Between the Lines]

This sounds like an ongoing war between Kmart and Sonic to me. Kmart was tired of the Sonic crowd using it's parking lot for fun and games. Here (South Carolina) the police would not "raid" a parking lot of an open business just to clear it of undesirables because the business is open all night the police have no authority to remove "trespassers". Although they would come to any disturbances created by such a gathering. Instead they would inform the store that if they didn't want people congregating in the lot to barricade the parts of the lot furthest from the business as many businesses here now do. A little common sense goes a long way.

[Rum Tum Tugger]

What is the straight-A student from Waller High School (Northwest of Houston) doing at the K-Mart parking lot at 12:30 a.m.?

I realize that you old farts from Podunksville think 12:30 a.m. Sunday (aka Saturday night) is late and way past your bed time, but the girl is 18 and it's not late.