Are you kidding? The riot act you're reading to Bells is basically the same one you read to me, and the same one you're now reading to Trippy. Who hasn't gotten this reaction out of you?
Suspected shoplifter dies after being detained at California Walmart
- Thread starter KilljoyKlown
- Start date
Are you kidding? The riot act you're reading to Bells is basically the same one you read to me, and the same one you're now reading to Trippy. Who hasn't gotten this reaction out of you?
Actually this isn't accurate. The company policy is to disengage, but takes into account the necessity to defend oneself. as it appears so far, that may have no relevance to the case- but it is relevant to our arguments.
Secondly, "My Insistence" was based on all of three short posts. You are putting words in my mouth. What I said was that he was "Fair Game" and that is my Opinion- You don't have to LIKE IT OR AGREE with it.
You referred to "Monster" first- and while I was on the defensive, I said, fine I'm a monster. So what? It's no more macho than you claiming to have size 13 shoes or that you set down your beer before brawling.
Uhhh whatever, troop. The reaction you're seeing is to Bells behavior. When Bells and I argue in thread- the thread explodes. You're mis-characterizing.
No I can't, you've made that clear.
I was, however, addressing a group of very specific points made earlier in the thread.
Then walk away, it's that simple.
I've read this thread, in its entirety, and frankly that's an hour of my life that I'll never get back.
That's your opinion. Perhaps you simply couldn't see the point that Bells was making, just like you can't see the point I was with my annecdote.
Just as, all of the evidence available to me suggests you overlooked the scenario I posited.
I wouldn't know, and to be honest, I lack the levels of interest required to go through your post history to confirm or refute this.
It takes two to fight, but only one to break it up
Are you privy to all of the conversations I might be having with Bells?
I thought I made it quite clear, or have you lost the context of that thread of the discussion already?
Come over here and say that (preferably in Otara).
Trippy- you ignore that Bells claimed I want to Deny Medical Attention.
You ignore that Bells claimed I want the Death Penalty Inflicted at the scene of the crime. That's two examples of many and I said NONE of these things, nor did I say anything that implies I would say that. Bells emotional reactions led to gross mis-characterizations.
You ignored that Bells showed a great deal of inaccurate information. This is what led to the huge flame out.
As far as it takes two it break it up- I DO TRY and the threads Ive argued with Bells in SHOWS this. She keeps pushing until I Blow My Top.
You express a complete lack of interest in the events and the argument- so WHY ARE YOU POSTING ABOUT IT?
If you haven't checked on it and do not care- your opinion on that doesn't impress me much.
You ignore that Bells claimed I want the Death Penalty Inflicted at the scene of the crime. That's two examples of many and I said NONE of these things, nor did I say anything that implies I would say that. Bells emotional reactions led to gross mis-characterizations.
You ignored that Bells showed a great deal of inaccurate information. This is what led to the huge flame out.
As far as it takes two it break it up- I DO TRY and the threads Ive argued with Bells in SHOWS this. She keeps pushing until I Blow My Top.
You express a complete lack of interest in the events and the argument- so WHY ARE YOU POSTING ABOUT IT?
If you haven't checked on it and do not care- your opinion on that doesn't impress me much.
No it isn't. I said the point was conditional, and "as it turns out," they did not disengage from the alleged shoplifter. So if it isn't relevant to this case, it isn't relevant to the argument.
What words did I put in your mouth? You said they don't have a responsibility to the wellbeing of the shoplifter. You said he was "fair game" and that "this is what happens." Those are direct quotes.
Oh, right, you were "on the defensive" after implying that I was a "bleeding-heart liberal."
Well, admittedly you use less bold lettering and much less underlining when crying foul over mine and Trippy's posts, but the complaining amounts to the same thing.
Bells
Staff member
Dude, I hadn't responded to you for 37 posts.
And you are still going on as if I am still a part of this conversation with you. As in I broke it off 37 posts ago (as per this post of yours) and you are still going...
Back off and cool off.. Seriously..
You should have done it after THIS post:
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2944143&postcount=47
You did not, you kept pushing.
Now I AM pushing, back. You're accountable Bells- you created this with your lies- so don't complain that I'm still calling you out for it. At some point, you will have to learn how to question things appropriately, not by lying about another person, refusing to acknowledge mistakes or misapplying painted images of their character.
Bells
Staff member
Oh yes, the "I'm da man" post..
You'll have to excuse us if we do respond to your posts (like the ones you made before and after that particular bold post).. It's what people do on forums. Respond. But 37 posts went by and you were still going on as if I was still in a discussion with you..
Back off and cool off.. Seriously..
kiwis's are unfeeling bastards in addition to that other thing
Naw, it's just me, it seems.
Neverfly, you've managed to completely sidetrack from my comments, which were to make the following observations:
Do you see what you've done here?
We've gone from me making an observation, to you not liking the way I paraphrased you, to you twisting the conversation around to me having to defend Bells - all because you think I have ignored something that's irrelevant to my intial comments.
And yes, I've deleted one of my posts because I have no interest in engaging you regarding your apparent personal vendetta against Bells.
Because by your own admission, you're emotionally charged.
Do you see what you've done here?
We've gone from me making an observation, to you not liking the way I paraphrased you, to you twisting the conversation around to me having to defend Bells - all because you think I have ignored something that's irrelevant to my intial comments.
And yes, I've deleted one of my posts because I have no interest in engaging you regarding your apparent personal vendetta against Bells.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Thank you. This place is turning into a playground for third-graders. And since it is, it's worth repeating this:
The playground mantra, "It all started when he hit me back," is 100% correct. It takes at least two people to create a fight. If the party who feels injured does not fight back, there is no fight, and furthermore the person who landed the first blow is left standing there in front of everyone looking like a complete idiot.
We're all smart. We know who's right and wrong. So just let the idiots stand there looking like idiots. There's no need to defend ourselves against them, completely derailing a useful discusson in the process.
Very well-
Where I live, a person is Innocent until proven beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Where I live, if you witness someone stab someone thirty times and grin, right in front of you, you're perfectly allowed to have an opinion about how they stabbed someone thirty times right in front of you.
I did not twist the conversation- I brought it back to what I wanted to talk about.
That was wrong of me and I have no business discussing it in this thread. I will avoid doing that now.
I did, however, find your anecdote irrelevant as not everyone can be expected to end an assault without injuring the other party. It may be possible at times, but not at others. It's anecdotal and it can be an opinion you have in regards to that one experience- it still has no bearing on whether the guys at Wal-Mart screwed up:
Some clarifications:
I do not believe these guys denied medical help willingly or that they "inflicted the death penalty." I think that they attempted to stop what they believed was a thief.
It is possible the man had a heart condition and was running to his car with pills- Maybe he was using the cart as a "Walker" leaning on it to give him strength- Following this speculation- it seems reasonable that he had no intent to steal.
It's also speculative and the Wal-mart employees had No Way Of Knowing that.
He gasped, "I'm dying!" A lot of crooks do. Police had been called, were on the way and Arrived Just as they got this guy to the ground.
How much time was that? Not even a full minute for someone to get out into a parking lot, across some of it before either being tackled or falling to the ground?
Not a lot of time there, to react, think or access a situation. A person can only do their best.
If the man was innocent and needed medications- ran to the car and was mistaken for a thief- end result being his death when he did not get to his vehicle- I grieve for him and the family. And for the employees who made an honest mistake- Not inflicted the death penalty.
If he was a thief that violently attacked Security guards, I'd have no sympathy for him.
And if someone dislikes that- Sue me.
However, in this instance you were only willing to extend this to the security guards, not the shoplifter. As far as any of us could tell, based on the posts you have made in this thread, you seemingly refused to even acknowledge the possibility.
It is precisely what you did.
It has every bearing on the situation. The argument that was being presented was that violence entitles violence. That because the alleged shoplifter had allegedly been violent towards the (at that point) security guards, the security guards were entitled to be violent with the alleged shoplifter. My point was that that's not neccessarily the case, and that it's not always neccessary to be violent to prevent further violence.
Arguably, it's possible at all times to prevent violence without being violent, there are a number of relatively passive moves that can, for example, disarm someone without injuring. Heh. I once heard Tai Chi described as "The art of helping people have accidents".
The moment they chose to engage him physically, and ignore his pleas rather than, for example, tell him to leave the soaps and offer medical assistance, this is precisely what they did - regardless of whether or not it was their immediate intent or concern.
Like it or not (and I must confess, I initially baulked at Bells' use of this phrase until I stopped and thought about it) that is the net consequence of what happened.
Rightly or wrongly, the staff prejudged the individual as being guilty of shoplifting.
Rightly or wrongly, the staff chose to ignore his pleas for help.
Those two factors appear to have resulted in, or contributed to his death.
Of course, having said that, there are no certainties, and under different circumstances, someone might have come out to find a body in the parking lot, and we'd be discussing a different headline.
Correct. However in doing so they made decisions and choices that appear to have contributed to the death of an individual.
Very good.
I don't recall suggesting otherwise, but it is completely consistent with all the information available (even at the start of the thread), and is supported by some of the new information that has come out.
Yes they did. He told them. Once he told them, the only thing they had to do was convince him to wait for the paramedics.
And there in lies the problem, or part of it. It's also part of the point that I have been making. Because the staff, who were not trained stock loss prevention officers, decided in advance that he was guilty of shoplifting, they assumed it was a ploy and reacted according to that assumption.
How many times have we seen this (for example) with the police? How many times has it been demonstrated that the assumptions we make about a person influence our perception of their actions?
So then there was no need for them to wrestle him to the ground, as he wouldn't have made i out of the parking lot before the police got there.
They made a judgement. That judgement was based on their perception, and their perception was coloured by their assumptions. As it turns out, that judgement appears to have been profoundly in error.
Good for you.
And this is the statement that has generated so much ire in this thread. On the face of it, this statement appears to imply a number of things which you have objected to being infered from it. It also leads us back to my point with my annecdote (or part of it).
Do you not consider that the police have a duty to bring an alleged criminal to a court of law so that they may face Justice?
Do you not realize that sometimes that requires that the police have a duty of care to criminals to ensure that they survive to make it to court?
Do you not believe that every citizen has the right to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise - regardless of whether or not they've been detained on suspicion of comitting a crime?
It take two to fight, but only one to break it up.
There is a certain satisfaction to be gained from that, I must admit.
I disagree- Stated a general opinion and Also Said It's Too Early to tell on This Case- three times.
My general opinion got lambasted and turned into a word brawl that extended well past the topic.
Personally, I do not have a problem with violence. many may find that offensive... But I think that violence has its place and cannot always be labeled as wrong or negative.
Akaido as well. But most people don't have that kind of training and can only respond in a primitive way.
Can they have been expected to do otherwise? A lot of guys claim a lot of things when being tackled by cops or security!
Until they are detained and in a more controlled environment, people cannot assume much of anything except "He's trying to get away."
Is this not what police do? Detain, get control and then investigate? You DID say you are in law enforcement, correct?
So tell us- do cops let people get away or run when they say something? Or do they seize control?
And remember- these are not even cops with training. Additionally, it was only a matter of seconds.
And they pursued- but there is nothing wrong with that. He had stolen goods (If they were not paid for- they are stolen) outside of the store and was fleeing on foot.
Can they be blamed? I think not.
You can contribute to the death of another inadvertently no matter how well you try to handle a situation. They MAY have contributed. But the man seemed to know something was wrong and there's no telling that nothing they could have done would have prevented it.
If he was feeling a heart attack come on, he did not run to the front counter and request an ambulance.
He ran out to his car. With stolen goods.
He may have contributed to his death... But it may have been a certain thing no matter what they did.
We do not yet know enough at this time. We cannot say with any certainty that they caused his death or even- contributed to it.
True.
He made a claim half-way through Crime Prevention. Could it really be taken seriously in the matter of seconds that they had?
Why did he not go to the front desk and request paramedics- immediately? Why did he flee the store, running to his car with a cart full of unpaid merchandise?
Hey- call me crazy but- I think this is a very valid question.
He very much acted the part and they can hardly be blamed for that assumption.
I think this line plays heavily into the argument between Bells and I.
Now- watch Bells or I justify our perceptions.
Fact is, the WalMart employees can hardly be blamed for seeing a man flee with stolen merchandise and put as a priority that it was his intent to steal- while he was fleeing- and try to prevent his getting away.
Speculation:
It is possible that it was his intent to steal. The stress resulted in aggravating a pre-existing condition. He then panicked, striking out at others, who tried to subdue him, unaware of a condition they could not have known about.
You nor I nor anyone else in this thread KNOWS that.
They could not have known what moment the police would arrive- they knew to detain- You are being Unreasonable at this point.
Perhaps, but a man fleeing with stolen goods still looks like a man fleeing with stolen goods.
Whether he had intent to steal or not has yet to be established, trippy- yet you are seeming to have already decided he was not intending to steal.
You cannot answer the question- but it remains valid- Why did he flee with a cart of unpaid goods out of the store and run to his car instead of asking for help inside of the store?
Yes.
But if he were to Violently attack them, they also have the right to injure him in self defense.
Yes, but they first gain CONTROL of the situation. They detain first, then call for medical help if needed. They put the safety of others in the area and will deal with the violence at hand, First. Many criminals even cause more injury to themselves during their thrashing, which gets ignored until he is subdued.
Some arguments presented make it really sound like cops are expected to just Back away and allow a violent man to either run off or do whatever he wants, so as to take care to not harm him.
No.
If he must be harmed to stop his violence- he gets harmed.
Yes.
But that still doesn't mean that we do not detain individuals caught in the act.