However: Just yesterday I went over this again in greate detail with a friend who is the effective head of security at a Target. He’s the kind of guy who loves knowing and enforcing the rules. I believe that he has the brains and experience to know what he’s talking about. This is in California.
Acording to him: People can only make arrests for crimes that they’ve seen actually happen in front of them. Making the door system go “beep” does not qualify. In fact, he said that Target corporate passed along an email about a situation that happened at another appliance store.
The customer bought four of one item, but three of them did not get demagnetized. He made the system go “beep”. The guards tried to stop him, but he refused to stop. They followed him. He kept asking if he was under arrest, and they kept saying he wasn’t. They blocked his exit from the parking lot. The police arrived. He pressed charges for kidnapping after showing his receipt to the real cops.
Private citizens do NOT have the power of detainment. If a real cop wants you to come over and discuss his reasonable suspicions of your criminal activity, you are obliged to go over. This does not apply to regular people.
If you go read that Adobe Reader file that was linked in this thread, it does not say that making the system go “beep” allows the security to arrest you. What it actually says is that making people go through the system does not qualify as unlawful search.
Also according to this friend, there is no such thing as resisting arrest against a normal citizen. If they’re using force, you’re not under legal obligation not to fight back.
I am one of those underpaid troglodytes whose management (and corporate-level as well, so I’ve been told) direct he check your stuff when the beeper goes off. I can’t chase you down and tackle you. If you tried to shoot me I honestly don’t know what I’d do, but diving for cover ASAP sounds like “plan A”. Having said that, I don’t think anything I am obligated to do would be likely to elicit any response from you except the opportunity to see your receding back (possibly accompanied by some inappropriate commentary – I had no idea how many people knew my ancestry. :D) “Door Greeter” is not a dream job, and I try to be as professional and pleasant as the circumstances permit. If you want to behave as if I am an inconvenient appliance, that’s your problem.
Some constructive criticism to all who hate this policy (it ain’t my fave either, believe me): If you don’t like the store’s policy regarding this practice, there are a few useful options. One of them isn’t chewing me out for obeying the boss. One of them *is *to complain to the store manager. A lot. Every @#$% time that alarm goes off on you, go find him/her/it and give them a super-sized portion of bile. If you haven’t got time, then call the store later and ask to talk to the STORE manager, not just “a manager”. You want THE BIG BOSS MAN, not some flunkie who just might think this isn’t important enough for the boss to hear. If it (the policy in question) is not chiseled in stone at the corporate level, he may decide to make his life less stressful by changing the policy. If you have some practical and helpful suggestions for alternative security measures, he might implement them instead.
Another option, with Wal-Mart anyway, is to call 1-800-Wal-Mart. They listen, and sometimes even act on as few complaints as one. I’ve seen it happen. If everyone would complain to the people with the power to change corporate policy instead of griping to each other and the poor mook who has the delightful priveledge of being their personal lightning rod, you might get the store to change the policy.
On the other hand, your ire is misdirected at me or any other poor schlub who works at W-mart, since this practice is intended to discourage the folks who really steal. They (the thieves) really want us to think they’re you, the honest customer whose business we value. Get pissed off at them, and I’ll be cheering right along with you. They make your life and mine much less pleasurable in many ways, one of them being my obligation to check your reciept at the door under certain circumstances. If it weren’t for them, I could just wave at you and ask you to have a good afternoon (or whatever might be appropriate).
–SSgtBaloo
(I really used to ignore this type of thread, but recieving the vitriol of an indignant customer is much more disturbing than just watching it happen from a distance.)
and the verdict was… pressing charges and people actually being convicted of a crime are not the same. If this was where I worked your friends refusal to comply with a request for the reciept would have resulted in an arrest. The cops that show up are going to wonder why your friend was being a dick and couldn’t just show them the receipt. Security responsibilities are an exension of the property owner/manager’s property rights. Would he be just as much of a jerk to the owner of a privately run store? In my exp, you will probably wish you were dealing with the security people.
This is GQ, your statement is factually incorrect. Target policy is not law. You may wish to consult California penal code.
some relevant sections
834. An arrest is taking a person into custody, in a case and in
the manner authorized by law. An arrest may be made by a peace
officer or by a private person.
A private person may arrest another:
For a public offense committed or attempted in his presence.
When the person arrested has committed a felony, although not
in his presence.
When a felony has been in fact committed, and he has reasonable
cause for believing the person arrested to have committed it.
Any person making an arrest may orally summon as many persons
as he deems necessary to aid him therein.
The person making the arrest must inform the person to be
arrested of the intention to arrest him, of the cause of the arrest,
and the authority to make it, except when the person making the
arrest has reasonable cause to believe that the person to be arrested
is actually engaged in the commission of or an attempt to commit an
offense, or the person to be arrested is pursued immediately after
its commission, or after an escape.
The person making the arrest must, on request of the person he is
arresting, inform the latter of the offense for which he is being
arrested.
Any person making an arrest may take from the person arrested
all offensive weapons which he may have about his person, and must
deliver them to the magistrate before whom he is taken.
There is no charge of resisting arrest, this is a separate charge, it does not mean you will not be charged with battery. In my experience we don’t press charges for a couple of bruises/scrapes taking you down. If you hurt someone making a legit arrest, plan on additional charges, just not “resisting arrest”
Lawyers please correct me if I am misinterpeting this in general. I know there are always occasional exceptions
Basic EOD training for me was at Eglin, in Florida. Advanced training was at Indian Head in Maryland. However, most hand to hand training occured during cross training. In fact it was my understanding that almost every Navy NAVSCOLEOD graduate also had to take the Marine Corps’ Rear Area Security and Small Unit Tactics (SMUT) training programs. It is in these programs that you learn to use personal weapons and self-defense tactics, and develop helicopter-insertion, , land navigation/survival, type skills. In addition, it is my understanding from talking to guys still in the service that many current Navy EOD personnel (although this did not apply to me) are also able to take the same BUD courses as the Navy SEAL’s and thus learn even more hand to hand.
I don’t think that I could take Bruce Lee or anything, but my odds of holding my own against a Wall-Mart employee are at least fifty, fifty. Also, I wasn’t implying that anyone should seek to use force unless force was first used against them. Indeed, a fundamental principal of legal self defense is that you are only allowed to use the amount of force approriate to the situation. Of course in this situation since the legal authority of the employees to detain you is in question, any amount of resistence may not be legal. In practice, I will continue to let them “search” me without complaint, but it still bugs the heck out of me. I understand the implications for loss prevention savings. However, I personally would prefer to pay a little more and not be consistently hasseled. In fact, if it was up to me we would do our shopping at Meijer’s or Trader Joes, but my wife likes Wall-Mart and she calls most of the shots (since she is earning most of the money).
Ahh… that explains it. Thanks for clearing that little piece of curiousity up for me. I went to the school in Indian Head, MD, but I was in the Army. The Army, at least at that time, didn’t include any training on hand to hand combat beyond a few days in basic training.
This seems to be a much higher standard for an ordinary citizen than for a police officier. A felony must have actually been committed, or an offense in the presence of the arresting person. An anti-theft buzzer going off doesn’t seem sufficient for a citizen’s arrest in California.
I am aware this is GQ, but you have confused two things. What I said is correct.
Citizens have the right to arrest for crimes they have observed. This is what your referenced code is talking about.
What they do NOT have is the right to detainment. Detainment is a middle ground between “free to go” and “you’re under arrest.” It’s, “Come over here because I want to talk about my suspicions of your criminal behavior.” A real cop can MAKE you talk to him once he has reasonable susupicion. A private citizen cannot. This is what I said above.
It is also correct that making the system go “beep” is not clear evidence of a crime commited in front of the private citizen guard, and he may not arrest you for it. He may also not detain you for it, because though a real cop could, he is not a real cop.
As for the difference between “pressed charges” and “got a conviction”, the clear implication in the conversation I had was that the cop and the DA did not just laugh off the charges. I assume that the customer let it drop once he got a big apology, but it is a fact that preventing people from freely leaving places when they’re not under arrest, if you’re not a cop, is kidnapping.
That should be Citizens have the right to arrest for felonies they have observed.
That makes two reasons that the guard cannot just arrest you for setting off the buzzer. He does not know that you have commited a crime, and he certainly does not know that the value of the items stolen constitute a felony, which makes a difference, as I read the code posted here.
Jurisdictions vary, but in many cases you have not actually solen anything until you remove it from the store. The alarm is sufficent for a store owner to perform a search. If you refuse to comply with the search then you will be detained for the police. The RFID system is alerting that something has possibly been stolen.
Did a store employee see the person who went through the detector array and set off the alarm? Most likely the answer is yes. So an employee saw you pass through the array and trigger an alarm and refused a search he is legally allowed to make (at least in virginia as cited by bricker above I have been unable to locate the relevant codes for CA). He can also legally summon others to assist as needed (like security people).
My post was copied and pasted from CA code, I did not modify it
The line “public offense” is what you are looking for in the code I posted.
The buzzer is an observational tool. Would it make a difference to you if someone saw a crime committed through a pair of binoculars or a camera as opposed to via any other form of detection. If they put an Magnetic resonance Imaging system on the doorway and saw the DVD you hid in your clothing as you walked out have they witnessed the crime?
My understanding of this situation (in PA only) is that if they insist on asking you to stop then you insist that they call the police. Of course you have done nothing wrong. If they call the cops and they search you finding nothing then you should have grounds to sue them. Many companies will settle out of court for around $10,000 or so, at least that’s what Pathmark (A local supermarket) used to do.
This kind of thing enrages me. If they can’t be bothered to have functioning equipment that does not go off falsely 5 times a day then they have no business stopping people who have done nothing wrong. Worse still is the growing practice of searching people, everyone, on the way out. Sams Club does this now and I REFUSE to wait in a second long line so some old bag can pretend to check the items in my cart against the receipt which I got not 10 feet away from her.
Nearly all of the stores in my area use the same door alarm company, so if a tag was not deactivated at a previous store it will set the alarms off each time you enter or exit a door with these alarms. Their are two types of tags: those that can be deactivated (used by retail stores) and those that can not (used by video rental stores, and lately, public libraries). Anyone with certain library materials or video rentals would set of the alarm in the drug store I managed. This has some obvious ramifications to the probable cause discussions in this thread.
When the alarm went off, it was usually assumed to be a false poisitive, and we tried to deactivate whatever the person had purchased. A follow up to the cashiers was always in order, because setting the alarm off after you paid for a product is annoying to the customers and to the staff-the fewer false alarms, the more likely it is that someone setting the alarm off is up to no good. The more advanced systems described by drachillix will ease a lot of these issues, but are probably a few years off.
The sensitivity of the detectors can be adjusted, but this basically changes the range at which a tag will be detected, not the type.
Back to the original idea…Company policy was not to follow anyone outside the store, even if we had seen them shoplifting. This wasn’t always followed, its pretty fruistrating to know your store is losing $100,000 plus to shoplifters each year, and that the guy walking away has a bunch of batteries or razors or whatever in his pocket. But I doubt anything would happen to Roland were he to say ‘this happens all the time, i didn’t steal anything’, and go straight to his car. It may be differnt with stores that employ security guards though.
Good point. I was trying to correct myself, not you, but I see your point.
The buzzer says that something still magentized is going through. It’s not evidence of a crime. Seeing someone pocket something and go through the door without paying is evidence of a crime. It’s not the form of detection, it’s whether or not the detection is detecting an actual crime.
As for the MRI system, I’m betting that one wouldn’t get through the courts as a reasonable search. If it did, then maybe seeing the DVD stuffed down your pants by using the machine would be evidence enough.
My understanding, although I wouldn’t swear to it, is that at least in CA posting the sign at the front or making you sign an acknowledgement to join the “club” does not mean you actually have to stop. You can’t sign away your constitutional rights.
As I have already posted, in Virginia, the buzzer IS, in fact, evidence of a crime, and gives rise to the level of suspicion necessary for stroe personell to be insulated from civil liability if they detain you.
It’s unclear to me why you would post denying that which I have already affirmed.
You are confusing searches conducted by police with searches conducted by private parties. The latter do not generally trigger the protections of the Constitution.
Again, a search by a private party does not necessarily implicate the Constitution. If I break into your house at night and find a stash of child porn, and report it to the police, they may use that information to obtain a search warrant; the evidence will not be thrown out because I broke in. If the police broke in, the kiddy porn evidence could not serve as the basis for a search warrant.
In California, the code clearly says a public offense must have been committed in the presence of the ordinary citizen. A buzzer going off is clearly not an offense in and of itself. While it may be probable cause in Virginia, I was specifically commenting on the California code.
Well, we obviously are talking past each other by using the law from different states. You don’t mean that you’re confused by someone having the nerve to contradict you, right?
If these searches are not regulated by the constitution, why did that court in that .pdf file even have to address the issue?
Where is all this CA code listed, and can you search in it? I’ve been told it’s illegal to talk on a cell phone at a gas station, but I find that a little hard to believe, even though it’s from a reliable source.
The buzzing policy seems to vary around where I live. Some stores have a police-looking person, but I’m not sure if he’s just there for the intimidation factor or he really has the power to arrest/search/whatever people. Most stores the shopper is just called back for a search, unless the place gets really busy.
All I can do for advice is to repeat what everybody else has said: check your clothes for any tags you may have forgotten to remove, don’t take rental videos with you when you shop, consider shopping elsewhere (without the wife, if she complains about it).
I’ve always wondered about the receipt checking at those warehouses. How the heck do they know what I’ve bought if I have my cart packed with merchandise?
