Where are these shoppers who were allegedly stopped, and who allegedly complained to mall security about the shirts? Shouldn’t they come forward in the interest of justice? :dubious:
Concerning security guards: I’ve been one. All you need is a pulse and a clean criminal record. My pay was above minimum wage, but not by enough to brag about.
Well, the devil’s in the details, i suppose. I’m not sure that i would classify refusing to take off a t-shirt that said “Peace on Earth” as belligerent. Actually, even the security guard’s statement suggests that Downs the elder was anything but belligerent; it seems apparent that he just made it politely and calmly clear that he would not remove his shirt, and nor would he exit the mall, He also made it quite clear that he was prepared to be arrested for tis behaviour.
And i’m quite well aware that there was a policeman present, but he was not acting anywhere near as ridiculously as the security guard. It was the guard who determined that Downs’s shirt was so offensive that it had to be taken off, and the guard who wanted him to leave the mall. Once the guard decided that he wanted Downs out of the mall, and Downs failed to comply, the policeman, as others have noted on this thread, really had no choice but to make the arrest. Even Downs, in some of the articles i’ve read, had no criticism for the cop, who was constrained by the law and was essentially required to arrest a person who failed to leave private property.
And, on reflection, i’m not sure what’s wrong with the “rent-a-cop” reference to security guards. Isn’t that a pretty straightforward and concise definition of the job? This guy was more like a “rent-an-idiot,” IMO.
And, as jr8 asks:
This is exactly what i asked in my longer post, above. If he was willing to press charges, and knew that the issue might go to court, why did the security guard not ask at least one of these shoppers - perhaps the ones who allegedly had a confrontation with the Downs men outside Macy’s - to add his or her name to the complaint? Maybe because there was no harrassment of shoppers going on? Sorry, but we can only go with the evidence at hand, and the police report has a single complainant - the security guard - who has every reason to, err, embellish his story to make it look more convincing.
Been there, done that, wielded the Maglite. In the month I spent in the job, my opinion of security guards went from “pathetic” to “subhuman”. It’s a horrible job, and (judging from my coworkers) those who do it for the long term are either incapable of getting other work or get off on the miniscule power trip they get from harassing people. It’s on the “telemarketer” scale of employment, frankly.
Stopping other shoppers IS harrassment.
Let’s…
Correct, but we do know the dispute was with Downs who was wearing their new shirts.
Irrelevant who started it. There was still a report of a verbal confrontation, due to the shirts.
Yes, how else would you describe them? They were two men involved in a verbal dispute. How could they be recognized? By their anti-war t-shirts.
Which is why she called security, especially with the previous protests in the mall causing a disturbance.
Do you have some transcripts of the exact conversation between the Light and Williams? Seems to me, given the previous protestors, that it isn’t a stretch to assume that these two were protestors and called such by Light. Why? Previous incident, anti-war shirts, reports verbal confrontations.
The shopper who reported it was an outside observer, only reporting the general disturbance.
The verbal dispute reported wasn’t because of a shoe sale. It was due to the shirts they were wearing.
If Down’s was indeed using his shirt as the preface for bothering customers, asking him to cover or remove the tool of instigation seems perfectly reasonable.
No it doesnt. In fact, it supports it.
Light’s statement was the complaint of verbal sparring by Downs by an outside witness. Williams claims he saw Downs harassing customers. They don’t contradict each other because they are two separate claims.
There is no inconsistancy as pointed out. They are two separte incidences. And just because no one complained about being harassed does not mean it didn’t happen.
We do not know the political views of the security guard, do we? Black police officers are present at Klan rallies to protect the Klansmen. You don’t have to agree with the politics of a person to do your job.
It could be just as easily argued that Downs is denying harassing shoppers to cover his ass and further his cause. Isn’t Downs a lawyer?
Where you sweaty and beetle-browed?
You assume that people care enough about this to actually take time out of their lives for someone bothering them at a mall. I highly doubt they stuck around to see the outcome, especially if the confrontation with Downs was as lengthy as it sounds.
So we should judge all security guards by your experience. Gotcha. So in that vein, the African-American I had to fire for stealing and bringing a gun to work (in a bank) means that all black people are theiving, gun-toting people not to be trusted. Gotcha. :rolleyes:
I see, so if i’m wearing a shirt that you don’t like, and you start badgering me about it, then it is my fault? And if there’s a confrontation, who started it is irrelevant when assiging blame? Give me a break.
Well if i did in fact know that they were causing the disturbance, i think i would probably mention that to the security guard, and i would also mention it the report i gave to the cops.
The point i’m making here is that, at this point, there is no evidence of harrassment of other shoppers, and, even if the confrontation was “caused” by the shirts, the actual verbal disagreement could well have been started by other people. And, in my book ,that does not makes the Downses responsible, no matter what they were wearing on their shirts.
I have no problem with that, although i think security should treat each case on its merits, and should realise that two men in anti-war t-shirts is not the same as a large demonstration carrying signs.
No, i don’t. But i would expect that someone like a store detective, familiar with the procedure of reporting crime to the police, and aware that her statement might well be used in a trial, would include every little detail of what she saw and what she said. If she didn’t we can’t be expected to make inferences about what is not there in the report.
That’s right - a general disturbance; nowhere is it indicated that the Downs men caused this disturbance. And, again, simply wearing a t-shirt is not sufficient to “cause” the disturbance. The instigators were the first people to actually start talking to the other people about the shirts, and we have no evidence as to whether or not this was the Downs men.
Again, true, but if it started because other people simply began abusing the Downses for wearing the shirts, then it is hardly the Downses’ fault.
Maybe, but why not just say to him: “You can wear the shirt, but if you’re going to harrass customers you’ll have to leave”? There is no indication anywhere that the security guard tried this, and again, we have only his word that the Downs men were indeed bothering customers.
Yes, but the report stated that Williams “[r]eceived complaints that they were stopping other shoppers.” But Light’s statement, which is the only “complaint” we know of that reached the security guard, made no mention of stopping customers. And Williams claims that he knew the Downs men were stopping shoppers because he saw them doing it, not because he received a complaint that they were doing it. This is simply semantic, i know, but it’s the sort of thing that one is supposed to be clear on when making a police statement.
I can almost hear Downs’s lawyer in court, to the security guard:
“Well, did you find out that they were harrassing customers from a complaint, or did you see these actions yourself? Because the front of the police report indicates the former, but your statement indicates the latter. And store detective Light never mentioned harrassment in her statment. Which one was it, sir? Or was the whole harrassment thing just made up to cover the fact that you overreacted to a t-shirt?”
(duscliamer: IANAL, and this example is drawn only from my vast experience of watching Law and Order)
True, but if no-one complained, why does the police report say that they did? And why did neither the security guard nor the police officer ask one of the allegedly harrassed shoppers to write up a statement attesting to the harrassment? The total absence of complainants, apart from mall representatives, means that it boils down to the security guard’s word against Downs’s. And, as Ed said:
I agree totally with this statement.
No, we don’t, but in the absence of any real evidence indicating that the Downses were harrassing other customers, i was drawing my own conclusion, just the same as you are.
Sure it could, but, as i said above, i see no particular reason to find either person more believeable than the other, so all that remains is the “evidence,” which seems pretty sketchy and unsupported.
It would certainly be in the interest of the mall to find them.
Did I say that? I don’t remember saying that. I reported my personal experience and appended the appropriate caveats to my statement, and I’ll thank you not to build a little strawman in my image.
But since we’re apparently getting creative with our examples, by your reasoning, if a Jewish man wearing a yarmulke was harassed by a group of anti-Semites in a mall, it would be the fault of the Jew for wearing the yarmulke in the first place. No?
Caveats? The “in my opinion”? I don’t call that much of a caveat. It’s ok to call someone “subhuman” if you preface it by "in my opinion? Or are you refering to “judging by my coworkers” in which you go on to belittle the people in a whole profession (even if it’s not much of a profession). Again, not much of a caveat.
Can you prove that Downs was harassed by people who disagreed with his anti-war stance? Until you can, then your creative example is useless. Actually, it’s useless even if you could. But that is just “my opinion”.
It is my opinion, and it was my experience. Are you a security guard, or do you know many security guards? Do you have a different experience to share, or are you just being snarky?
Nope – I was just reading the information you presented.
**
Again, that was just following your own example. **
To which you’re entitled.
Maybe a bit snarky.
And yes, I have known quite a few security guards. The security guard at the bank I used to work for is one. He was kindly old gentleman, a bit on the perverted side (loved dirty jokes), but still nice none the less. Never saw him on a power trip.
The security guard that just retired here after his wife died. Worked here for overy twenty years on midnight shift. Very nice man, devoted to his family who worked those years on midnight shift for the health benefits for his sickly wife. Had to call the police on vandals on a few occasions, I don’t call that “subhuman” and take offense at anyone who would.
The security guard that replaced him just recently asked about how a co-workers father was doing after he underwent 12 hour surgery to remove a brain tumor. Caring for other people’s pain seems pretty human to me.
In fact, I’ve never had a bad experience with a security guard. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t power-tripping, moronic guards out there. I just think it’s wrong to generalize about them all because you didn’t get along with them, or they didn’t get along with you. That was the point of my example, it had nothing to do with the OP.
Fair enough. Maybe it was just the company I worked for. The only reasonably well-adjusted one out of the dozen or so of the bunch I worked with was doing it as a second job because he needed the cash. The management were even worse. But at least none of them were “beetle-browed”.
None of which speaks to the credibility of the individual security guard in question.
Well, this story has gained a great amount of media attention, local and national. And in all the stories i’ve managed to find on the web, there is not one case of someone who was in the mall that day contacting the media and saying “Hey, i was there, and those guys were harrassing people while they were shopping. The security guard was just doing his job and making sure that i could shop in peace.”
Given the tendency of many members of the public to do just this sort of thing, the absence of such claims further raises my level of skepticism regarding the supposed harrassment of shoppers.
I’ve gotta agree with this 100%. For instance, if someone wore into that mall a T-shirt with a big smiley-face and “Have A Nice Day” on it, and I heckled them about the shirt, resulting in a confrontation, I’d be the one who should be kicked out of the mall, not them, however repugnant such a T-shirt would be.
Well by the way people descibed the mall, maybe nobody wants to admit that they shop there. 
And I haven’t heard anyone coming forward and saying “I saw these guys walking around in their shirts and they never bothered anyone as far as I could tell.” Of course, the people the witness saw argueing with Downs haven’t come froward either. Maybe that was a lie too. A vast right wing conspiracy perhaps. Or, as I said, people are just indifferent.
As for who started a confrontation, I have no problem thinking that someone else confronted Downs first. Of course, given the volitivity of this issue, I find it hard to believe he didn’t expect such. An anti-war statement is seen by many as anti-American (regardless if it actually is or not) and quite a different message then “Have a Nice Day”. Downs was afforded the opportunity to continue to shop if he covered up. He refused.