No, I do not work there. However, when I worked in construction I was a frequent customer. I have seen people arrested and led away in cuffs both for shoplifting small items and for eating the food and not paying. The local hardware stores are, frankly, a bit hardnosed about these things but apparently they do have a significant problem with shoplifting.
Whether or not the people left wrappers in their cart, in their pockets, or on the shelf I don’t know, since in general when I see someone getting hauled away by the cops I don’t get involved. When the parties involved are yelling about food eaten and not paid for, or five drill bits “forgotten” in a pocket, it’s not that hard to draw some conclusions about what was going on.
rap·per
noun \ˈra-pər
Definition of RAPPER
: a performer of rap music
wrap·per
noun \ˈra-pər
Definition of WRAPPER
: that in which something is wrapped
I agree, every person SHOULD receive equal treatment regardless of race, color, creed or gender but we all know that in practice that doesn’t always happen.
Some time ago my landlord was targeted for an attempted robbery by two thugs who had brought along their three children. As it happens, my landlord isn’t someone you want to fuck with and the robbery attempt wasn’t successful. Nonetheless, the two would-be-muggers brought three children along to the crime scene, and the kids got to witness daddy and uncle assaulting their target, as well as said target whacking daddy over the head with a steel pipe. Uncle told the police they had taken the kids along to diffuse suspicion.
Yes, there ARE criminals who attempt to use kids, physical state, whatever, to try to look innocent or something.
for goodness sake it’s got little to do with whether she’s pregnant, have children or had eaten something more expensive. i don’t want to shop in a place that has so little respect for their paying customers or be subject to such an ordeal at the slightest hint of infraction.
Begging the question is when you assume your conclusion in your premise. Essentially, your argument is she stole, therefore, she stole. Obviously that’s not logically sound.
Cant - dont know the UK law that well - but tell me if I go to the shop not intending on theiving and on my way out I pick up something on the spur of the moment - is that intent - I did not intend to do it till i did it.
What I am taking from this is that next time I go to Home Depot I should definitely not try to eat a rapper while in a shopping cart. Especially before we get to the checkout line.
Did you pick up the thing intending to take it out of the store without paying? That’s intent.
Let’s proceed with an easy to understand example. You select 20 cans of soup from a supermarket. The cashier checks you out and you pay for 19 cans of soup. You walk out the door with 20 cans, are you a thief?
If you stuffed one of the cans into your pants so that the cashier could only charge you for 19, yes you are a thief. Intent.
If you presented all 20 cans to the cashier and she simply failed to ring up one of them, no you are not a thief. No intent.
When the store looks at your receipt and only sees 19 instead of 20, they call the cops, who show up and either arrest you for stuffing soup in your pants, or let you go because… no crime has been committed.
Does not compute about the 20 cans if you presented all 20 and the cashier made the mistake - you cannot be held responcible as the cameras would show you where not to blame - so no crime - why would the police be called when it was the store at fault and not you?
AND
What I was saying is if she gets to the bottom of her cart and does not bring up the wrapper then thats her intent even if she put the wrapper in the cart intending to pay. She may not have intended to do (she put the wrapper in the cart intending to pay) till she did it (she gets to the bottom of her cart and does not bring up the wrapper).
Does that clear up what I’m saying. The previous post about ‘intend to do it till i did it’ was to show that intent only goes back till the point she made the decision and did not pay
[QUOTE=Cheesesteak]
The police shouldn’t arrest people if a crime hasn’t been committed, and intent is a necessary component of the crime.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Cheesesteak]
Police officers are not required to make an arrest every time someone alleges a crime, they should use their discretion in first determining whether or not a crime has been committed in the first place.
[/quote]
How do you know the police didn’t use their discretion. The only articles we have seen only have the women’s point of view, and although she claim that there was no intent we really only have her word for that.
Given that the police were actually there on the scene, I find it totally believable that they could have had good reason (i.e. probable cause) to believe she intended to shoplift. Maybe they thought she was lying, based on good reasons - maybe she wasn’t very convincing when she told her side of the story to the police, maybe she had shifty body language or an inconsistent or implausible story when she was talking to them. Maybe she told the store that she forgot the wrapper in her pocket, then after sitting around for four hours she told the police she left it in the cart, and when the police compared stories they decided she was lying rather than confused. This is all hypothetical, but who knows really - I don’t for sure, since I wasn’t there.
And while ideally I would hope that police don’t arrest someone if a crime hasn’t been committed, that’s an impossible standard to hold them to in real life. If they honestly thought they had probable cause to arrest her (she ate the sandwich and left without paying, and they think it’s probable she intended to do so), then they did nothing wrong by arresting her. It’s up to the prosecutor to decide if there’s enough evidence to press charges, and it’s up to a judge/jury to convict - it’s not up to the police. If the police could only arrest people who are definitely guilty, then why even bother having a court system at all? I mean if only guilty people should be arrested when there’s overwhelming evidence, what’s the point of a trial?
And the fact that they ended up not pressing charges doesn’t mean that she actually did not shoplift. For all we know, she did intend to shoplift, but the Safety and the prosecutor exercised discretion not to press charges because it would look bad in the media to prosecute a pregnant women who’s in the military.
“That’s” her intent? What is? In your scenario, are you saying she originally intended to pay but decided at a later time to see if she could get away with shoplifting?
Again, is it because she wants to get away with not paying for the sandwich or because of some innocent reason, such as thinking the wrapper was someone else’s garbage?
A few weeks ago, I was in Walgreens buying whatever one buys at Walgreens, plus I had put a package of chewy Sweetarts in my handbasket. I went to the cashier, paid, she bagged my items and I grabbed the bags and still had the basket in my other hand and was dropping the bags back in as I left and I had already gone through the scanners when I looked down and saw the Sweetarts were still in the basket. It’s really only luck that I looked down when I was putting the bags back in the basket (and honestly, it was weird that I was putting the bags back in the basket at all. I’m not sure why I was doing that).
So, I did exactly what the people in this case did. I put something in my basket and then left without paying for it. I happened to catch it after passing the scanners and went back and handed it to the cashier, but it was just luck that I did catch it. I’m sure I’m just a terrible, horrible thief who should have been arrested and shrieked about on a messageboard.
But there’s really no evidence she ever made the decision not to pay. The far more likely scenario is that she unloaded the cart, missed the wrappers, and didn’t pay on account of error, not malice.
You know that those receipt checkers are at the exits in large part to prevent cashiers from helping their friends steal stuff, by pretending to ring it up.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that her intent when eating the sandwich has any bearing on the criminality of her actions. It’s her intent when she leaves without paying. If she noticed the wrapper, realized that it was from her sandwich, and chose to leave it in the cart, she committed a crime.
If she did not notice the wrapper, and did not intend to walk out without paying for her sandwich, it’s not a crime. She owes the store money, but she didn’t commit a crime.