The people in the store aren’t just suspects; they’re also potential witnesses. If it turns out the child really has been abducted, the police are going to want to question everyone who might have seen the child being taken out of the store before it was locked down.
OK. In the absence of any helpful elaboration in your post, I went looking and found this, which says the following.
Regarding consensual contact:
So yes, I guess this means if you’re some random parent walking out of the store with your own kid in tow, you don’t need to give the police your name, or even answer any questions, unless they explicitly order you to stop. If that happens, then we are no longer talking about consensual contact, we are talking about an involuntary detention, which is only permissible when there is reasonable articulable suspicion that the detainee did/is/will commit a crime.
Note that even in situations where a person is legally required to identify themselves to police, they are still not required to present any identifying documents.
Is this a better description of how it all works?
I agree that false imprisonment would not apply if the area is not completely bound. I would be looking in the law books for something else.
It has been some time since I took first year torts, but is complete boundment always necessary? I seem to recall that an escape method that required a Spiderman type of climbing did not count as a reasonable method of escape. If I am going to be detained, even for a second at the only exit out of the store, am I not then bound to the area?
For example, say that there is a line out the door and the store employees are questioning everyone who leaves. I am bound to the area for that period of time. False imprisonment does not require the detention to be for an extended period of time and their act of closing and locking the doors I came in caused me to be confined to that closed area for a length of time that I did not wish to stay. I would be interesting. Be a fun case to argue.
In theory, without a stop and identify law, you would not or could not be charged with anything. In practice, at least around here, the police like to arrest you for obstruction on that because “he hindered my investigation.”
I have to then sit down with the prosecutor and the officer and pull out the law book and show them that was is required is that a person “unlawfully” hindered the investigation. According to their logic, I point out, a cop could come to the front door without a search warrant, ask to search your house, and if you refuse, you could be charged with hindering their investigation.
They then point out that it is your right under the 4th amendment to refuse a search. I then point out that it is your right under the 5th amendment to remain silent. Case gets dismissed.
But I hear later that they are still arresting people for it. These are generally good guys and I don’t want to jam them up, but I’m going to start filing 1983 suits if they don’t stop.
ETA: They also like to say that he “disobeyed a direct order.” We don’t live in North Korea and nobody is required to obey “orders” from the police. They pull that out of the traffic code where it says that when police are directing traffic it is a traffic offense to not obey their traffic directions.
They turn off doors. They close doors. They even bolt doors. Those aren’t locks, and don’t require a key.
Also, some of the shops I use actually do have extra exit space, and I think that “occupied” is a loose concept: if you have one remaining customer, is the building occupied? I think not in a way that would put you in breach of some regulations.
Well, yeah, you could be bringing the kid out, pretending he/she is yours.
How would that help?
Yes, that is an excellent description of the law, but not how the “consensual” contact occurs in practice.
If I walk up to you with a badge, a gun, a taser, handcuffs, etc., and say “Good morning, sir, I am Sgt. UltraVires with the local police. Could you please hand over your identification?” then you would probably break your wrist handing over your identification as you would rightfully believe that I am ordering you to do it and that there will be Big Trouble if you don’t.
Yet, the courts don’t view it that way. I said “good morning” and “please” so what I did was simply and humbly request that you provide identification and did not order you to do it. As long as the officer uses the right words, the encounter remains consensual.
Fire codes may say elsewise.
How would not letting new people in help?
Are you saying that stores and malls cannot have excess egress capacity ? Because the stores I’ve seen that lock the doors leading to the mall but leave the street doors open have twice as many doors (and therefore twice the capacity) as a similar-sized store which is not in the mall (in other words, the set of doors that are locked are probably not required by the code.)
If you let new people in, then everyone, including the kidnapper can claim that they were not there when the abduction happened. You have to then sort through the tapes to see who was there when it happened.
If you stop new people from coming in, then everyone presently in the store is a potential suspect or witness and the police can use “consensual encounters” to interview everyone and allow people to leave.
Of course, this then becomes one of the uncomfortable areas of the law where the courts are increasingly siding with the police.
If a bank teller says that two black men robbed her and the police see two black men in a car two blocks away, is that reasonable articulable suspicion for a stop? Probably.
If the mother in Wal-Mart says that her little girl, age 13 was kidnapped and I am leaving the store with my 15 year old daughter who claims that I am her father and she is not being kidnapped, is that RAS to detain me? Probably.
Not really. I’ve seen a street person accosted by the police who simply said “Am I under arrest?” and when the police said no, they turned and walked away. Terry stop frisks are about searching for weapons. The supreme court case saying “you must identify yourself” had to do with when there was someone who fit the description of a crime reported and the police were investigating. (IIRC, father and daughter in a heated argument r altercation. Someone saw, called the police. By the time police arrived, they had settled down. Police were not sure what had happened, if everything was ok, so were investigating a reported crime and wanted names for their records about the investigation. When it was not forthcoming, they were arrested. Supreme court said police were entitled to know who was who when they were suspecting a crime was happening )
Fitting the description of someone in a reported crime is not the same as being in the same place as the police or being one of a hundred people in the store with no other evidence to go by. At what point police are entitled to demand you identify yourself - that’s eventually something you may have to tell to the judge if it’s a grey area.
I don’t disagree with any of your points of law. But the average person, not a sovereign citizen or a Libertarian with some study of the law, a regular person will take the “request” to produce ID and talk to a police officer as an order that he or she does not believe he is entitled to refuse.
And that is supposed to be the test: Would a reasonable person believe he is not free to leave? I argue that a reasonable person when approached by a police officer “asking” for something does not believe he is free to reject the request. I lose that argument always. 
ETA: We have at least one poster in this thread who believes that you must produce ID to a police officer upon demand.
Thanks for posting this.
This part is straight out of a classic urban legend, in which the child is sneaked into a bathroom, given a change of clothes and had their hair cut in an effort to abduct them without arising suspicion. I haven’t seen a documented instance of such an event ever happening.
More on the urban legend (plus info on retail store Code Adam procedures, clarifying that doors are not locked to keep customers inside).
At one hospital I work at there are not infrequent Code Adam announcements over the P.A. system (not that they amount to anything in my experience). Either security at the newborn nursery is really lousy, or staff are hyper about nonexistent kidnapping risks.*
*the hospital doesn’t shut its doors to prevent visitors or staff from leaving until the Code Adam is cleared.
Well obviously they detain and question anyone trying to leave with a child who might be “Adam”. That doesn’t mean they restrict everyone from leaving.
If you’re talking about me, I looked it up. In Arkansas if you’re asked to ID yourself or show ID, refusal can be taken into consideration whether to arrest or not. I’m not sure why any law abiding citizen would argue the point or refuse? Who wants to go to jail to prove a point? A point, I add, that gets you nothing. I wouldn’t have a problem showing my ID to anyone if it helps in the search or safe return of a child.
That cite refutes your previous post:
The reason I asked what state someone was in is because it matters. In most states the stop and identify statute is based on Terry which requires reasonable suspicion of a crime past, present, or near future.
The police like any other citizen can ask you who you are. But unless there is RS of a crime you are not required to answer in most states. And refusing to talk to the police is usually not probably cause in and of itself for an arrest.
Of course I admit I can only profess to be an expert on this in my own state that I’m a LEO in, so, yes, YMMV, which I contended from the start. But your own cite overall backs me up.
Why would a refusal to show ID, an absolute right under the Constitution, add to PC for an arrest? Would a refusal to allow a search of your house act in the same way? Exercising your right to remain silent?
If I am walking down the street in Little Rock, and the police approach me, depending on the surrounding circumstances, they either have or do not have PC to arrest me or RAS to detain me. Refusing to provide identification does not add to that evidence or the lack thereof. It is me exercising my right as a free person.
As far as why I would want to prove a point? In most cases I would not. I have shit to do and would probably hand over the ID. But maybe I’m in a bad mood that day and I want to prove a point that I don’t live in North Korea and that you, Mr. Officer, can piss off because I do not need to carry official government papers while shopping at Wal-Mart. My mileage may vary.
I don’t make the laws. Sorry.