Excessive force used on deaf 'shoplifter'

[draggar]

and i'm drawing conclusions based on fact. the fact is he was charged with second degree robbery, not armed robbery. therefore, there was no weapon.

(The only news article I saw (KTLA linked before) said robbery - is there a different one that says different?)

No but he was charged with robbery so he did use violence, the threat of violence, or put the victim in fear.

He could have taken a swing at the security guard.

I've tried to find California's levels of robbery but I can't. I've found several sites for other states and the general consensus is they use one of three systems:

The three degree robbery system:

First degree - using a deadly weapon (gun etc..)
Second degree - using a weapon (stick, mace, etc..)
Third degree - no weapon (fists etc..)

Two degree system:
First degree - using a weapon
Second degree - no weapon

And armed / not:

Armed robbery - using a weapon
Robbery - no weapon

None of the states that I saw used both. You (or the article) might be combining laws form different states.


*****


California is under a different system:

212.5. (a) Every robbery of any person who is performing his or her
duties as an operator of any bus, taxicab, cable car, streetcar,
trackless trolley, or other vehicle, including a vehicle operated on
stationary rails or on a track or rail suspended in the air, and used
for the transportation of persons for hire, every robbery of any
passenger which is perpetrated on any of these vehicles, and every
robbery which is perpetrated in an inhabited dwelling house, a vessel
as defined in Section 21 of the Harbors and Navigation Code which is
inhabited and designed for habitation, an inhabited floating home as
defined in subdivision (d) of Section 18075.55 of the Health and
Safety Code, a trailer coach as defined in the Vehicle Code which is
inhabited, or the inhabited portion of any other building is robbery
of the first degree.
(b) Every robbery of any person while using an automated teller
machine or immediately after the person has used an automated teller
machine and is in the vicinity of the automated teller machine is
robbery of the first degree.
(c) All kinds of robbery other than those listed in subdivisions
(a) and (b) are of the second degree.

Source: http://law.justia.com/california/cod...n/211-215.html

So yes, it looks like he would be charged with second degree robbery but not because of the lack of a weapon but because of the location where the robbery took place.

[Plaidman]

Its amazing all these situations you can come up with to justify the guard's overeaction all while ignoring the fact that it would probably have been reported by the media if the deaf man was running around threatening people with a knife like you made up.

Well, sorry. Guess we never realized that the guards, police, judges, were all horrible anti deaf people. The very fact that deaf person dared to come within any amount of distance to them caused them all to radically assualt the poor person for just no reason at all, set him up with a bail of thousands and thousands of dollars.

I'm sure the previous shoplifting the deaf person did was also just a bunch of lies from other antideaf people. I mean, they're a bunch of anti-deaf people out there just like anti-fat people are there. Deaf people take up funding for medical hearing aids, take up teachers times by having to repeat it to a deaf person, whole new schools of teaching had to be made just to communiate with the bastards who dared to never hear others.

Yeah, being deaf just absoulatly means you never steal. Ever. No deaf person in the history of the multiverse has ever shoplifted.

Nor has any blind person ever murdered.

Hey, I hear that people missing an arm never ever speeds ether!

I mean, having a disability just fully means they never commit a crime, and we're all just totally jumping the gun. Even the cameras in the store are lying by showing the theft! I mean WOW! The deaf guy just like, teleported outside and the guards just started beating him for no reason at all.

[Red Panda]

Instead of taking everything to absurd levels and looking foolish you should use some reasoning once in a while. Its a perfectly logical conclusion to think that the guard was justified in thinking the deaf person was a shop lifter but could have gone about it differantly. Instead you assume the deaf guy busted into the store with his machine gun blazing and John McClane had to stop him from setting off the bomb he had hidden in his jacket.

[Nyoibo]

So yeah, you tone people out, which includes a screaming maniac, which is no different from the millions of other screaming maniacs they hear every single day at the mall.

Which is fine, unless you happen to be a security guard or similar

Well good. Then you fully understand the concept of tunnel vision and only focusing at the task at hand, and if something isn't an immedity threat, you don't hear or see it.

Again, training, and I put this down to shitty standards and requirements, it seems that no one has any training worth a damn to become a security guard.

[Plaidman]

Instead of taking everything to absurd levels and looking foolish you should use some reasoning once in a while. Its a perfectly logical conclusion to think that the guard was justified in thinking the deaf person was a shop lifter but could have gone about it differantly. Instead you assume the deaf guy busted into the store with his machine gun blazing and John McClane had to stop him from setting off the bomb he had hidden in his jacket.

If he didn't shoplift, it wouldn't had happened.
Why do so many people think thieves deserve to have some kinda of kid gloves when it comes to them?
So what if he was deaf? That does NOT give him a pass to steal. He made the choice to do it, and then got hurt for it. Sucks, but it wouldn't had happen if he didn't decide to steal in the first place.

Which is fine, unless you happen to be a security guard or similar

Again, training, and I put this down to shitty standards and requirements, it seems that no one has any training worth a damn to become a security guard.

Didn't realized that only trained martial artists could be guards.

[Canarr]

If he didn't shoplift, it wouldn't had happened.

Are you serious?

I mean, yeah, I know, all prisons everywhere are full of innocent people, but come on: false arrests never happen? Cops or security guards never make mistakes? Tags are never forgotten in clothing? Anybody who's apprehended by security must be guilty? Innocent people have nothing to fear from the police? I can't even type that with a straight face.

No, criminals must not necessary be treated with kid gloves, but neither should they be subjected to unnecessary amounts of force. And the store's internal investigation, as posted by linguist, clearly say "unnecessary" to me. OBSERVE and REPORT. Not choke half to death.

And, no: guard duty is certainly not limited to trained martial artists. But I feel it reasonable that a security guard be able to observe his surroundings, to have a reasonable grasp of the laws governing his chosen profession - in particular, the Do's and Don't's - and apply common sense to a situation at hand. And that's not what I see in that video.

[draggar]

Instead of taking everything to absurd levels and looking foolish you should use some reasoning once in a while. Its a perfectly logical conclusion to think that the guard was justified in thinking the deaf person was a shop lifter but could have gone about it differantly. Instead you assume the deaf guy busted into the store with his machine gun blazing and John McClane had to stop him from setting off the bomb he had hidden in his jacket.

.. and the opposite needs to be true. Everyone needs to stop acting like the deaf person did nothing wrong.

The police found enough evidence to charge him with shoplifting *and* robbery meaning they found more than one piece of merchandice from the merchant that he didn't pay for (if you steal one item they can't charge you with multiple overlapping crimes).

People are acting like the guard should have known he was deaf and fully known and understood sign language and not tried to stop the deaf person from stealing.

No where did I say the guard should not have acted differently, in fact, I DID say:

Yes, the guard overstepped his duties (according to the store's policies) as a security guard and used too much force to stop a shoplifter (since we do not know if it was self defense we can't include that) and if it was proven to be excessive, he should be held accountable. It is a completely different story if it was in self defense.

OK, he went beyond the store's policy in reference to force. This he should be held accountable for.

All I am saying is that it is impossible to make a true judgement if the security guard's force was justified or not. The video starts with them already on the ground. We do not see what started it, we do not see what happened before this, we do not see what happened in the store. It is IMPOSSIBLE to tell what happened before that until some other video(s) or report(s) come out.

Funny how people have already made up their minds - guilty even without evidence. It is impossible to know if his force in the video was justified or not.

[Plaidman]

Are you serious?

I mean, yeah, I know, all prisons everywhere are full of innocent people, but come on: false arrests never happen? Cops or security guards never make mistakes? Tags are never forgotten in clothing? Anybody who's apprehended by security must be guilty? Innocent people have nothing to fear from the police? I can't even type that with a straight face.

No, criminals must not necessary be treated with kid gloves, but neither should they be subjected to unnecessary amounts of force. And the store's internal investigation, as posted by linguist, clearly say "unnecessary" to me. OBSERVE and REPORT. Not choke half to death.

And, no: guard duty is certainly not limited to trained martial artists. But I feel it reasonable that a security guard be able to observe his surroundings, to have a reasonable grasp of the laws governing his chosen profession - in particular, the Do's and Don't's - and apply common sense to a situation at hand. And that's not what I see in that video.

Right.... so not only did the clerk forget to remove every single tag in the clothes, every security guard there only /thought/ he might have stolen, whatever the cops saw must also be a group hallegenic on tape of seeing him stole, the judge must have also just made a mistake.

Your forgetting there was enough PROOF to warrent arresting him and putting him in jail for a trial, where'll he'll just get out because off this fucking publicity he's getting. "Oh, he was deaf! You can't arrest deaf people"

As for the do's and don'ts, trust me, if you let a shoplfiter go, police don't do shit for that, and the shoplifter just comes right back the next day to steal again and again and again and again until the cows come home, or a police officer does deicde to show up, which won't happen. Ether do something like detainment, or let all your stuff get stolen.

As for the fact people screaming "well his friend was saying he paid for it! and that he's deaf!"

So? Are you honestly thinking that every fucking shoplifter and groups of shoplifters immedity tell the truth? Ask any cop. They can be pulling mountains of stolen stuff out a person, and the person will STILL CLAIM he didn't steal it, and this includes his friends that were with him, because those friends will also be charged, so of course he's going to say they /paid/ for everything.

Let a person steal your stuff at your home. See how quickly you jump on him if he's repeating it and cops don't do shit, just like they don't do shit for shoplifters that aren't caught.

[Red Panda]

Good point Rorschach. What we should do is use maximime physical force on every suspected shop lifter. Security guards should be armed with tazers that they will use on anybody we might have shoplifted or possibly shoplifted in the past. If they respond to security trying to detain them with anything more then a confession then snipers have authority to take them out. After all, a person's physical well being is a small price to pay to make sure nobody steals impulse items.

[Plaidman]

Why kill someone for stealing? Even a coldblooded murderer shouldn't be killed. Why be put out of their misery for the misery they did to others? They don't deserve that kind of peace. And the deaf guy didn't maybe steal. He did steal. Both here, and in the past.

[Red Panda]

I'm glad you can tell the future since you have already seen how his trial has gone. What are things like in 2012? I'm really hoping Planet of the Apes turns into reality.

[Plaidman]

Don't need to tell the future to read the lines.

The shoplifter was given a HUGE bail and put in prison.

if cops didn't see that he indeed shoplifted, they wouldn't have arrested him.

It's amazing what happens in the extremly rare cases police DO find themselves in a shoplifting case. They ask to see the tape before they arrest the guy.

You know what happens when the guy doesn't shoplift? (You can read about a case like that in one of my old threads at CS when a coworker did that).

They DON'T arrest the person! They DON"T throw a person that DIDNT shoplift in jail.

But hey, your entitled to belive that he is perfectly innocent and never stole, and the guard was just a huge anti-deaf person that assualted him for no reason.

Because guards assualting someone for no reason makes MUCH more sense then guards assualting a thief.

[Red Panda]

And a guard using extreme tactics makes more sense then your assumption that this person was armed and dangerous even though no witnesses back up that claim and he didn't have a weapon.

[Plaidman]

Never ever said he had a weapon did I?

[linguist]

And the deaf guy didn't maybe steal. He did steal. Both here, and in the past.

we don't know that. all we know is that the police believe they have enough evidence to charge him. whether that evidence will hold up is up to the courts to decide. until then he is presumed innocent and his past transgressions have no bearing on the current case.

for someone who claims to want 100% proof before punishing someone, you're sure quick to judge and condemn without 100% proof.

in any case, even if he does turn out to be found guilty, the guard acted with unnecessary force. shoplifting is not a crime which merits a violent and potentially lethal takedown, as i've said before. a few dollars worth of merchandise is not worth anyone, accused or accuser, getting injured or killed over.