I would love to see Trader and Dr of Drunk respond to this.... Can't say it any better then that, and thats how you should view the situtation.
Have you made that ruling? I'm sorry. You can be convicted for negligence which, in turn, can be a crime. * EDIT * : an example is a mother leaving her baby locked in a car during the summer. The baby gets brain damage or worse, death from the heat. Did the mother mean to do it? Nope. Was it a terrible accident? Yes. The mother is still in the wrong.
I don't drink, so take the "r" out. I don't know why I'd need to respond to it, but if you want me to : I agree with it.
Although its a natural human reaction to try to justify what your relative/friend did, or blame someone else. The point is that he put himself in a high risk compromising position where anything can happen. So yes even though I might react differently when emotions are running high, once I calmed down, in time I would come to the same conclusion that he was the one who committed the crime. This is what everyone seems to be forgetting here. I still beleive it was a death that could have been easily avoided. Wal-Mart is more responsible than the guards for not properly training them. Yes, his family should get a decent settlement, but the guards are not to blame to the point where they get prison time.
What if he started running out of the store, with these guys chasing him and he tripped, fell and broke his neck, shhould they have just let him go and not chase him?
Are these security guards really "Walmart" guards or do they outsource to some other company. I may have missed this in the articles posted.
NO, you are dead wrong. No one here is "forgetting" that this man committed a crime, and I am plain dumbfounded at how you can even say that. Read all the posts above. I think pretty much everyone, myself included, acknowledge repeatedly that this guy committed a crime. Shall I post excerpts from Dr. of Dunk's posts, RM95's, mine? I think I can speak for others in saying that the point here is that reasonable force, as the law alows, was NOT exercised. Excessive force was applied, resulting in negligence, and a man died because of it. I am glad you can acknowledge the death could have been avoided. Again, because this man committed a crime, it DOES NOT subject him to punishment outside the law and/or punishment at the discretion of security personnel of a retail store. PERIOD. This is not rocket science. The investigation, through evidence and witness accounts, will decide whether the security personnel will be punished.
It would seem to me that sitting on the alleged perpetrator's legs would render him immobilized just as much as sitting on his torso would, given that his hands are already handcuffed behind his back. And sitting on his legs would not suffocate him death. In the interest of Justice, I would hope a jury would determine such and find the security guard(s) at the least, negligent. That is if the Walmart Corp even lets this get to trial. I notice not much media coverage thus far and we have Jeff's post that an eyewitness' account was all but ignored by the local news crews. I would expect that Walmart likely buys a lot of ad time on the local networks.
I think I figured out what an ANALOGY is so lets use one like Doc likes to do. Say someone hit your little sister or little brother hard for no good reason. You get mad adrenaline starts pumping and you hit the guy so hard that he falls and hits his head on something on the way down and dies(no weapons used, just one hit). Are you responsible...should you get prison time? Should his family be able to sue you for this? Yes, it could have been "avoided" by just walking away or even just talking it through.
I was thinking the same thing. Tragic all around. Sorry about your friend, Jeff. Were they poorly trained? Did they not follow process? Simply tragic. The man died. And by the accounts we've read...he died needlessly. They had him. He was cuffed. It appears he was no longer a threat. If their policy is to permit chasing and detaining suspects they simply have to ensure they know how to do that safely. Otherwise...the sniper on the roof solution is possibly just as effective. I don't envy the security guys. They have a job I would never do -- certainly for the pay they get. I've watched security guys chase down suspects doing the grab n' dash. Risking serious injury for minimum wage. Nuts. But it's not about the $3 shampoo bottle. It's about the $30b in shoplifting costs -- made up by lots and lots of $3 shampoo bottles! So I understand why they take this stuff seriously. I do find the rally cry for lawyers and mega-payouts a bit unsettling. Also the demonizing of the security guys, the 'rent-a-cops.' These were men trying to do a pretty risky job for (likely) poor pay. I sit behind a desk. Nobody takes a swing at me. So it's easy for me to judge. But they f*cked up. Royally. A man died. And the reports that have been quoted are very damning. Crazy. This isn't just 'one of those things.' I'd hope that something good comes of this. Standards and training for security personel? Guidelines for restraining suspects? Licensing of security companies? Maybe a monetary settlement or suspensions/firings of the guys involved is part of the resolution. But I hope much more than that comes of this. Again...we can rant all we want about these things conceptually. But the man died needlessly. Can't ignore that.
If you're going to make an analogy, try to make it actually represent the situation that happened. Otherwise, what's the point? Here's another analogy: Let's say Guy A randomly shoots Guy B. Is he responsible for it? No, it has nothing to do with the situation at hand, but neither does yours.
The fact is, both the shoplifter was wrong, and the security was wrong. The shoplifter knew there was a chance, albeit a very small one, that he could get killed doing what he did. Until you give up, you stand that risk. A great analogy is a teen kid that decides to break into cars for their stereos. Chances are the teen won't get caught. If he does get caught, 99% of the time he'll spend the night in Juvi, and be released to his parents. But 1% of the time, a car's owner will catch him and shoot him. The car's owner is not liable for killing the kid. The kid doesn't deserve to die, but he knows the risks. On the flip side, most security guards are cap wannabie's that couldn't make the force for various reasons. To those of you who say they didn't want to chase him down? You're fooling yourselves. These guys crave action, and the opportunity to be the hero. Chasing that guy down, and subduing him was better than sex to these guys. They overstepped their bounds with their mob/cop mentality, and need to face consequences. My verdict? Security guys lose their jobs and get charged with criminal negligence. Walmart settles with slain family members for 100K. Hopefully, other criminal miscreants are given notice that minor crimes can have serious reprocussions.
Thats what I said to Doc. But he told me that I did not know what an analogy was, so after much intensive reasearch I figured out what an analogy was. He used one where it had a guy dying of cancer and blaming him for smoking instead of the doctors for not catching it soon enough. Saying person A doing something wrong does not justify any reaction from person B onto person A. Thank you for making my point.
Oh yes, you know exactly what goes through their minds. Most are just following orders, because if they are not they get fired. Just what I have heard from a couple of security guards, but Im sure you know what they are thinking more than they do.
Have you ever worked as a bouncer, or any other type of job that requires some force? Doubtful. These guys were on an adreneline high, and it clouded their judgement. They kept the suspect forcibly on the ground well after he stopped moving. That is idiotic. The fact that they remained seated on the suspect tells me they were wayyyy too happy with their "catch" to let it go, at least until police or news crews could get there. Both sides were wrong.
You have reading comprehension problems. Nowhere did I say anything about dr.'s catching it soon enough. What are you babbling about? At least understand the argument first : Person who smokes has lung cancer Dr. prescribes wrong medication or too much Person dies Dr. should not be held liable because person who smoked knew smoking caused lung cancer. The argument is that simply because a person knew what he was doing is wrong does not mean wrongdoings committed against him afterwards should somehow be ignored or be considered "non-criminal".
traitor_j is spotted by security personel vandalizing his neigbor's car/house or sexually abusing their pet. A chase ensues. tj trips. Said security personel unsheaths her rather large mag light and beats tj about the head until he stops whimpering about lost beauty sleep and Rodney King. tj subsequently dies from the humiliation of being subdued by a 105 lb. lesbian security guard. JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE! CASE CLOSED!
Hey DoD, stop hittin the Bacardi so early in the morn....it's makin you sound way too coherent for the Hangout......you can't just come in here with all this damn logic and reasoning on your fingertips
Walmart is extremely anal about shoplifting because hundreds of millions, if not billions are stolen from them every year. That's a lot of money. Walmart could charge less, provide more jobs and benefits, and invest more in the community if they didn't have that much stolen every year. That doesn't mean they should murder a guy for a pair of sunglasses, but I can see why they invest a lot in loss prevention.
