In Virginia, the buzzer establishes CONCLUSIVELY that store personnel who rely on it to detain and conduct searches are insulated from liability. No other evidence is necessary – the law says conclusively that the buzzer means store personnel may rely on the protections of the law if they stop someone.
In California, that presumption is not present. This is not to say that the buzzer is legally meaningless - but that it’s merely one piece of evidence to be considered in a “totality of circumstances” analysis. So it’s “evidence” in the weaker sense that it is a circumstance that may be considered when deciding if reasonable, articulable suspicion or probable cause exists. When deciding if a detention by store personnel is reasonable, the court will take into consideration all the facts known to the store personnell or to police.
Does that clear it up?
In CA: The buzzer is not meaningless, but it’s not conclusive.
Someone wanted to know why I would shop at Wall Mart if I hated this experience. Here’s a few reasons:
My wife likes it and she earns the bucks right now.
It cuts $20 to $50.00 per week off our combined “house hold goods” bill over competition such as Meijers. Also, if we go to Kroger or Marsh we must then go to someplace like Wall-Mart, Target, or K-Mart for items not sold at grocery only stores. Super Wall-Marts sell everything.
It is fifteen minutes closer to my home than the next available comparible option. Also, shopping in only “one place” saves at least an hour per week in time. That’s like an extra week vacation every year.
Most workers at Wall-Mart are very friendly. I just don’t like this particular policy. In fact, I wouldn’t have a problem with the scanners if they were able to lower the apparent error rate (right now I would say that it’s at least 1%).
Wall-Mart also sells gas that is five to ten cents cheaper than the next lowest cost alternative.
Obviously, I’m not the only person who feels this way based on their stock price.
WHAT? I’m not trying to argue, but what they hell do you guys buy in a week that the difference is $20 to $50? Because if the savings is that much, I’m willing to turn a blind eye against everything I detest about Wal-Mart (mostly the other customers) and shop there exclusively.
Honestly, the few times I’m there, the prices are always similar. Okay, maybe Roma tomatos at 99¢ instead of $1.09, but then you’re talking about hundreds of pounds of tomatos per week.
Heck, we don’t even shop for groceries at the warehouses, because they just don’t seem competetive with Meijer for fresh foodstuffs.
So if I read this right, I was not wrong. The buzzer in CA is not enough by itself to arrest someone. You’re going to have serious trouble if you do a citizen’s arrest on someone in CA if your only evidence is the buzzer.
I base my savings estimates on the times that I’ve convinced my wife to instead shop at my favorite “Super” store, namely Meijers. On those occassions our total grocery/household goods bill has usually been around $170-$200 rather than the $130 to $160 typical of Wall-Mart. Of course part of the difference might be that there are simply more appealing things to buy at Meijers. For instance their produce seems to be far superior to Wall-Mart. No doubt this tends to cause us to purchase more fresh fruits and vegetables. That said, I do think that Wall-Mart’s prices are substancially lower (then again I think Save-alot, Aldi’s and other discount stores have lower prices than Wall-Mart).
Also, I actually like the Wall Mart customers at least as well as the Meijer customers on average. Consider this example of why. I was shopping on my way home from school at the Meijers on the North “good” side of town. They had a Seafood/Alfredo pasta combination (two pound bag) for $4.99 . I picked up two bags and a man near me went to follow my example also grabbing two bags. His wife (or girlfriend) exclaimed with alarm “put that back, and get this instead no sea food pasta worth eating would only be sold for five dollar.” Instead, she prompted him to purchase a fancier bag that only had a pound and a half of sea food pasta contained within. It is exactly that sort of “elitest” behavior which I find to be offensive. I’ll take a truck load of back woods hicks over a group of stuck up snobs any day. However, that merely reflects my personal preference.
OK, I hate it when people try to wiggle out with “That’s what I meant, you should read my mind next time”, but that is what I meant, basically. I didn’t know the hair could be split like that.
I meant that in CA you couldn’t realistically arrest someone based on just the buzzer.
The question becomes, “when is there probable cause?” In CA, apparently the buzzer alone is not probable cause. You have to have other evidence of theft.
I doubt any reasonable minded security person would solely on the buzzer.
The section you posted states probable cause to detain to investigate, not to arrest. Probable cause to investigate is a much lower standard than arrest. I’m not a very good legal citation hunter but I’m pretty sure that detaining you to investigate is perfectly appropriate and legal on the alarm only.
If you tripped the alarm, were asked to check the receipt and you refused, you have not just tripped the alarm. You have tripped the alarm AND refused to comply with their legally allowed investigation (which could be over in 10 seconds by simply allowing them to check your bag and receipt. This refusal adds another component to the stores reasons to suspect a problem, if you were belligerent about it, toss in another one.
You are backing this into a pretty narrow corner for wide legal manuvering. Our legal system is full of subtleties, thats why we pay our lawyers big bucks, to apply the proper “subtlety” to our situation. One carlessly used conjunction can make an epic difference legally.
I don’t find Meijer buyers as elitist, but on the other hand we go to one of the two nearby Meijers in the blue collar parts of town (keep in mind that here, blue collar means middle-to-upper middle class auto workers).
But it’s funny you should mention your example! My wife’s recently gotten me eating fish, which I grew up not eating and have never really eaten. So, we go to the frozen seafood display, and tell her that we’re going to get some fish. The grabbed the cheapest one there, not wanting to waste to much money in case I didn’t like it. It was about $3, I don’t know the quantity – enough for two people, I think. I told her the same as you described: no fish worth eating can only cost $3. So I grabbed some orange roughy that was $8.00 – I think the quantity was the same. And you know what? The $3.00 fish was horrid, and I loved the orange roughy (but to be honest steak is cheaper and tastes a lot better!).
So, I took the challenge and went to Wal-Mart last night. I’ll precede my story by saying that yes, I have been to clean Wal-Mart’s in the past, so maybe my experience is exceptional, even though I expected it. So here it is: the first thing I did was grabbed a cart from the front of the queue (apparently this was wrong, you’re supposed to get it from the end of queue and walk around everything!). My taking the cart resulted in a box of cheap American flags falling to the floor – apparently the cart was supporting the box. I tried to stand the box back up because that’s the type of person I am. The box broke, so I said “screw it” and left it there – that’s the type of person Wal-Mart’s made me. Turns out the cart had something nasty and sticky on it, right where I had to drive it. Seeing nothing to clean my hands on, I spit on them and cleaned them on my pants. Mind you, this is something I’d never consider doing anywhere except in Wal-Mart.
So, I think they do have some things cheap, I’ll admit. We got a 24 pack of Charmin for $6.00 – they were $8.00 at Farmer Jacks, where we went next (read on!). I got a big can of Maxwellhouse for $5.50 instead of the normal $7.50 that I’d pay for Folgers. Don’t know if it was a deal, since I prefer Folger’s. I got four, little spiral-bound notebooks for $0.25 each – that was even cheaper than the dollar store, where they were three to the dollar. We looked but failed to find some dye for my wife. The price was the same at about $8.00. We tried finding milk and eggs, but guess what? This friggin, filthy Wal-Mart doesn’t have a “real” grocery section! There was a milk case, though, but it only had a couple of gallons of skim (hey, water’s virtually free at home). Oh, and I got the big box of Frosted Flakes for $2.50, and it’s usually $5, so that really was a deal. But… it was sale, and sales don’t count.
So, I’ll admit that I saved $4.25, but that’s off on monthly consumables, which is less than I spend on coffee at work. I’ll have to see if there’s a decent Wal-Mart someplace that actually has groceries and repeat this experiment. That $4.25 on $16.83 represents a 25% savings. If it holds out for everything at Wal-Mart, then by golly, maybe it really is substantially cheaper than Meijer!
By the way I spoke today with the manager of our local Wall-Mart SuperCenter, and he admitted that they had alot of complaints about this issue. I told him of the thread I had started at Straightdope. He indicated that their authority to stop suspected shop lifters emanated from so called "Merchant Shop’ laws that exist in every state. However, he indicated that it was store policy no to forcibly stop anyone especially if a “buzzer” was the only evidence. He also indicated that there were “sensitivity levels” that could be set, but that they had not yet been able to get the technician out to change the level. He was really nice about the whole thing.
By the way, I wonder… IF a shoplifter brandished a weapon to discourage a security guard during a shop lifting incident wouldn’t that “convert” the charges to armed robbery?
By the way in responce to your situation, I would only shop at so called “Super Wall-Marts”. That is because they tend to be much newer, and hence nicer. The old Wall-Marts (the few that still exist) get the short shift on most issues.
By the way while I think that Meijers has the best produce of any “Super Store”. My vote for the nicest would be the new Target Supercenters, they are immaculate. If you want to torture yourself try the new K-Marts. The ultimate grocery shopping experience used to be Atlas Supermarkets in the Broad Ripple area of Indianapolis. However, they went out of business due to a union, formation dispute. Probably, the best “small” regional grocery is Trader Joe’s. However, the would probably LET you shoplift a small amount since they know that they will make it back many times over with their prices!
