Monique Tillman was charged with assault and resisting arrest by the off-duty skin-headed police officer, Jared Williams. After a judge reviewed the video, the charges were dropped. She and her family have filed suit. This has probably already been covered in this thread but I thought I’d mention it out of consideration for others who, like me, make liberal use of the scroll wheel when Smapti is involved.
She’s lucky there was video.
I hope she/her family persue this and end up with a big payday.
A philanthropist fronting legal fees for people abused by “LEOs” would be a wonderful thing.
When a mall cop is “trespassing” you, he doesn’t have the right to grab you by the hair and jerk you to the ground, Smapti. She had the right to leave at any time.
It’s good to see some Dopers treat Smaptibot with only the respect it deserves.
If she believed she was free to leave, then she should have asked instead of assuming.
Who are you to declare that a law is “unjust” or “immoral”, and that there’s a “duty” to break it? Can you scientifically prove that your morality is objectively correct? You cannot - all morality is manmade, subjective, and nothing more than your personal opinion. Such a mindset is gross egotism and antithetical to democracy; you’re declaring that the laws enacted by the will and consensus of millions of people are void because you and you alone have decided you don’t like them. There are lots of people who think certain laws are unjust and shouldn’t apply to them - jihadists, rapists, serial killers, white collar fraudsters, the list goes on. If you have the right to decide a law shouldn’t be followed, then they have exactly as much right to break any laws that they think are standing in their way. If you want the laws you like to be obeyed, then you have to obey the laws you don’t like.
I don’t expect you to understand, broken man. Decent people with non-fractured abilities to make moral judgments are capable of judging whether laws are helpful to society or not. Broken people like yourself are not.
But you’re still making a choice – you choose to outsource this moral judgment to authority, even though the greatest evils and suffering perpetuated by mankind against other humans were almost always assisted by obedience to authority. Your system means that evil and harmful authority can never be disobeyed – and if authority cannot be disobeyed, then it cannot be challenged and overturned. My system means that good authority can be supported by decent people, and bad authority can be challenged.
By your system, slavery would never have ended. There would have never been Civil Rights advancements in America. Gay rights would have never advanced. Women would have never gotten the right to vote.
Your system supports the worst horrors ever to occur in human history. My system allows society to advance and improve.
Mall cops are not police, they do not have police powers.
Security guards have no more rights than any other citizen. They may not touch you, they may not detain you (if you choose to walk away, they do not have the right to assault you or force you to remain). And you can sue the ever loving fuck out of them or have them charged with crimes and they won’t get the same protection as police.
Oh sure, they’ll tell you otherwise. They’re lying.
In terms of D&D alignment, I’m sure Smapti thinks he is Lawful Neutral. Unfortunately, his insistence on things like this makes him Lawful Evil.
Here’s the problem - none of the people who committed those deeds thought of themselves as “evil and harmful”. They all believed that they were " decent people" who were doing what was morally right. ISIS believes their cause is moral. Hitler believes his cause was moral. Appealing to decency and morality is meaningless because the terms are inherently subjective and immeasurable - you cannot assert that your belief is moral and someone else’s isn’t because neither of them have any objective worth. The only way morality is capable of having any force is through law.
By “my system”, none of those problems would have existed in the first place.
And the people who committed those horrors would have told you the same thing.
Moral and decent people can tell the difference. You’re the only one who can’t. Most people aren’t broken like you.
Morality is capable of having force through consensus of society – and sometimes society will reject what is imposed on them by an unjust authority. There has never been a society on Earth in which this didn’t happen sometimes – and thus your system would have failed in every human society ever in our planet’s history.
Your system fails in the real world, since unjust authority already exists. Your system only works in a fantasy world in which there is never bad behavior by authority. In the real world, it fails again and again, since there has never been a human society in which the authorities did not sometimes mistreat people.
Moral and decent (and non-broken) people can tell the difference.
You’ll notice that you’re the only one arguing for this monstrosity of a system that never challenges or disobeys authority. That’s because you’re the only broken one here. Everyone else gets it without needing an explanation. You don’t because of the massive damage you’ve endured from trauma.
I’m sorry for the trauma you’ve endured, but I wish you would accept that it has fundamentally broken your moral sense regarding authority.
Prove the existence of objective morality and decency.
If “moral and decent people” agreed on right and wrong, then “evil” people would never be allowed to have power.
“Unjust authority” is an oxymoron.
“Everyone else” has failed to critically examine their own beliefs. If you took the time to do so instead of stopping after deciding that what you believe should be is what is, then you might learn something.
IANAL and I am not suggesting private security have any extra powers compared to ordinary citizens. However I looked at Wikipedia (not a definitive legal authority I know) for Citizen’s Arrest and it says of the USA:
Most states have codified the common law rule that a warrantless arrest may be made by a private person for a felony, misdemeanor or “breach of peace”. A breach of peace covers a multitude of crimes in which the Supreme Court has even included a misdemeanor seatbelt violation punishable only by a fine. The term historically included theft, “nightwalking”, prostitution and playing card and dice games.
Which suggests to me in some circumstances private security can detain you.
TCMF-2L
It’s a human construct, which I’ve said many times before. It’s not objective. That doesn’t mean morality and decency don’t exist.
I choose to see them in a way that means that society can be improved and advance. You choose to see them in a way that means that society can never be improved, since authority must never be challenged.
We both make a choice in this – and you choose a stagnant society that is incapable of improving.
Things are improving throughout the world (in the long run, at least), and have improved since past centuries, because of challenges to authority. And more people agree now than did in the past.
My system has allowed societies to advance and improve, while yours makes it impossible.
Only for broken people like you.
How could I possibly support your system when it would have resulted in such catastrophic and continuous suffering were it applied in any society in human history?
Your system results in monstrous harm and suffering that can never be challenged. I don’t think you’re capable of critically examining your own beliefs, but I wish you would.
Private security can detain for certain offenses until a real cop is summoned, but I would need to see a cite that they can not only detain but use force and restraint on someone whose only offense is passing through a parking lot.
If the teen was trying to “flee”, isn’t what you want a trespasser to do? Get off the premises? I don’t understand what point there was in holding her there any minute longer than it takes to tell her than cutting through is disallowed. Not that I think the kids can even be accused of trespassing since a request to leave is usually first required when it comes to public accessible areas.
Biking through a parking lot is standard kid behavior. God help us all if we’re okay with teenagers being bullied and physically assaulted for something as trifling as this.
From the article you linked:
"She was charged in juvenile court with resisting arrest and assaulting an officer. Williams claimed she had tried to kick him, de la Cruz said.
He said the charges against Tillman were dismissed by a judge who viewed the video and found no evidence that the officer was investigating a crime when Tillman was stopped and no evidence that she assaulted Williams."
So the judge dismissed all the charges: i.e., she was not guilty of the crimes you claim she was guilty of. To clarify, the judge dismissed the charges because he was not a moron, a status you should aspire to.
When I was a University Security guard, we busted a 14 year old kid for viewing porn in full view of everyone in the library. He was also searching gay prison inmates for ‘relationships’ when they got out. 
We escorted him to our offices to ‘trespass him’, which meant filling out paperwork and having him escorted off campus. If at any time, he had decided to take off running or not go with us, he could, and we knew it. Of course, we certainly didn’t tell him that. We also knew better than to touch him, even ‘incidentally’ 
to ‘guide’ him to our office. Then our Director (former cop) who was still in the office decided to detain him for police, and have them take him home and tell his parents what he was doing.
If you assault someone leaving your property and then tell the police you ‘detained’ that person to trespass him, a smart cop will 1> Laugh in your face, then 2> As the victim if they want to press charges. A bully cop will let you go through with it. Then a smart attorney will assist in suing your ass, or your employer.
Dismissing a charge is not the same as being found not guilty.
And since morality is not objective, your notion of morality has exactly as much validity as ISIS’ does.
Authority can be challenged without engaging in criminal activity or violent revolution.
How could I possibly support your system when it has resulted in such catastrophic and continuous suffering when it was applied in any society in human history?
Funny how the business I work at detains (often with physical force) shoplifters trying to leave our property over a dozen times a day and not once have the cops laughed at us or asked if the shoplifter wanted to press charges, nor have our asses been sued.
So you are amoral, then? :dubious:
Please don’t expect any applause.