I can’t see how it’s in any way legal - I’m assuming no one has ever fought it in court before. Especially if the store does release people when they ask.
Sure, and such a system would still let people inside leave by pushing a bar on the door or whatever.
If this lock system actually exists, then the owner of the store should be brought up on charges. Because doors that lock people inside a building are a clear violation of fire codes. This is not a new thing: We’ve known that locking people into buildings is bad since 1911. And, in this case, an employee following his employer’s (illegal) policies (and yes, it IS their policy, or the button wouldn’t be there at all) has resulted (indirectly, in part) in someone’s death, so the owner should be the one up for the manslaughter charges.
I don’t see how you can be so dismissive without knowing the full facts.
If this all happened in seconds and the clerk barely had time to process the fact that bystanders were present, that’s one thing.
But if the clerk kept the bystanders locked in for several minutes with an increasingly irate man who was threatening violence and while the victims were pleading to be let out, then I certainly don’t care how little he earns.
The remote locking thing is somewhat popular among small businesses that are vulnerable to robberies. It’s not illegal to do in most jurisdictions because there is a privilege for the use of force to keep somebody from stealing from you.
But either way, the fact that something is sometimes legal doesn’t mean it’s a complete defense at all times. There are things that are sometimes OK to do that are bad to do at other times, and if you do them at a bad time and it gets somebody killed, well, you fucked up bud.
This sort of security system is not really that uncommon. Especially in stores the sell expensive, easily pocketed goods like jewellery or cell phones. I’m not sure what sort of legislation surrounds their use, and I assume it varies from state to state, but it’s not the outrageous corporate overreach you’re treating it as. It is, I believe, generally legal for a place of business to detain someone they suspect of committing a crime.
Does that privilege extend to locking in another customer who has not stolen from you?
(Not trying to play « gotcha! ». I’m curious about the scope of this privilege. Is it a state law?)
Same question - does that extend to detaining someone not suspected of committing a crime?
Has anyone here looked at the precise statutory language around “involuntary manslaughter” in Michigan? Until we know specifically what that says, and know at least a bit about how it’s been interpreted in other case law, we’re reacting to individual guesses about what the words “involuntary manslaughter” ought to mean.
Yes, across the USA the term has a kinda consistent sorta straightforward meaning one could get from a quick google or wiki. But in the law, the devil is in the details.
Separately …
Mantraps have an interesting and checkered history in the law. And as this event demonstrates, are real two-edged swords when they trap a perp along with a potential hostage.
In this particular sort of circumstance, I have no idea. In general, obviously, no, that’s illegal, but I was responding to a post that seemed to think that there’s no circumstance in which a system like this could be legal. I think if there had been no other customers in the store when this happened, the clerk’s actions would not have been illegal, but the existence of innocent bystanders makes it murkier.
(IANAL)
Michigan (like most states) uses the International Fire Code.
It is an old common law privilege, but it has carried over into a bunch of state statutes. It doesn’t apply to anybody but the person (reasonably) suspected of shoplifting.
Is that the entire international fire code? Seems like it should be longer than a single sentence.
Yeah but that applies much more to the corporation deciding to install the lock than the clerk, who got to calmly decide whether it made sense to install a device for locking customers in their premises or not. Again, in this case it seems like the clerk may have acted somewhat unreasonably, but he still used the device exactly as it was intended to be used, in order to stop a thief leaving their premises with stolen goods. And who’s say he wouldn’t have shot the customers out of spite on his way out, if he had opened the door straight away ?
Note also there is nothing in either article (including the one featuring an interview with the owner) that supports the claim that it was policy not to use the device if other people were in the store.
Of course it’s not. It’s something like 50 pages long. But if there’s an exception that would apply in this case, someone else can go digging for it.
Maybe I’m not understanding what you’re saying. What I’m saying is that there are two possible scenarios: one where the clerk hit the button and trapped the guy and it was reasonable, and one where the clerk hit the button and trapped the guy negligently. Whether or not it’s sometimes legal to detain a shoplifter doesn’t tell you which scenario it was here. The company was legally allowed to install the lock and tell its employees to act reasonably with it.
My point was just as with the clerk, just because there is not a universal ban installing devices like this, the corporation that installed the device should still be criminally liable if the device is used in exactly the way it was intended and, in a way that is completely predicable to anyone with half a brain, customers were endangered and killed.
To me its no different to a construction company deciding to use cheap concrete, that would clearly risk a building falling down. Its a clear, predictable outcome of their actions, and they should be criminally liable even if there is no law saying its illegal to use cheap concrete.
Ah, of course, thanks. Seems fair to me, if the facts are tilted that way.
One of those situations that really highlight why new job orientations involve dumb things like signing a piece of paper that says you watched and understood the video entitled “A Man’s Life is Worth More Than Four Dollars.”
Okay, so, what does posting the first sentence from a fifty page long law actually demonstrate, then?
Is it really? I’ve seen plenty of stores where customers must be buzzed in but can just walk out and places with a vestibule where you must be buzzed in or out and some of them probably allow the clerk to leave it unlocked for exiting most of the time - but in those vestibule traps, you aren’t locking someone into the store. You are locking them into the vestibule , which is usually not going to involve a bystander being locked in. But I’ve never known of one where the clerk would be locking someone in the store rather than the vestibule
What I have commonly seen is a lock that allows employees to lock the door so that new customers cannot enter but allows customers already inside to leave either by using a crash bar or a thumb turn.
That it is illegal to have an exit door that people cannot open?