Originally posted by: clicknext
Wow... Kmart... havn't gone to one of those in more than 10 years.
Oh, right, this thing is about the police thing... umm I'll just say I'm glad I live in Canada.
WTF is this supposed to mean? Moron. What a Troll. Good thing I know many Canadians and realize they have brains.
I am not agreeing with how the Houston Kmart/Sonic owners, nor the Police, handled this, but...
I work as an overnight manager at a store like this. We had problems with people congregating in our parking lots. It isn't trespassing, but it is loitering. If they have came into our store to purchase something and are talking with their buds in the parking lot for an hour, fine. But when night after night, week after week, they show up in the parking lot and make NO purchases and are merely there because every other store has kicked them out of the parking lot. Then it becomes a problem.
I have nothing against the people. I did the same when I was a kid. The problem becomes that people who shop at our stores begin feeling uncomfortable. It's the mob psychosis thing. They see a group of juveniles, the assume the worst. And most of them are not causing any sort of problem at all. But it's the store manager's job to make the store a safe place to shop. If someone complains, we have to do something about it.
I let them go for a few days. And the five cars that parked out there for 5 hours a night became ten cars the next day and twenty the next. I defended the people who were loitering when my employee's were complaining that they felt "uncomfortable" going to their cars and scared their cars were going to get stolen. One of my employee's knew the guys/gals who were loitering, and I sent him out to give them a "warning shot" and tell them to go. They left that night, and came back the next night. That was when I had to call the police.
And then it becomes trespassing if they show up again.
--Christopher
I work as an overnight manager at a store like this. We had problems with people congregating in our parking lots. It isn't trespassing, but it is loitering. If they have came into our store to purchase something and are talking with their buds in the parking lot for an hour, fine. But when night after night, week after week, they show up in the parking lot and make NO purchases and are merely there because every other store has kicked them out of the parking lot. Then it becomes a problem.
I have nothing against the people. I did the same when I was a kid. The problem becomes that people who shop at our stores begin feeling uncomfortable. It's the mob psychosis thing. They see a group of juveniles, the assume the worst. And most of them are not causing any sort of problem at all. But it's the store manager's job to make the store a safe place to shop. If someone complains, we have to do something about it.
I let them go for a few days. And the five cars that parked out there for 5 hours a night became ten cars the next day and twenty the next. I defended the people who were loitering when my employee's were complaining that they felt "uncomfortable" going to their cars and scared their cars were going to get stolen. One of my employee's knew the guys/gals who were loitering, and I sent him out to give them a "warning shot" and tell them to go. They left that night, and came back the next night. That was when I had to call the police.
And then it becomes trespassing if they show up again.
--Christopher
HomeBrewerDude
Lifer
- Jan 18, 2001
- 14,465
- 1
- 0
Obviously a lot of posters here have not bothered to either read the whole thread or read the second article that was written on this subject. There were not 425 people arrested. The number is somewhere in the 200s (285 I believe). It sounds like a few extra people got caught up in the mix but judging from the description of the parking lots in the area, that number sounds about right for the people in the two adjacent lots and not the people in the immediate Sonic lot or those parked close to the Kmart store.
In the article it says they went into Sonic and ordered everyone to march out and be arrested.
Hence the father and the 10 year old girl.
I'll give you that one but its still not the 425 that everybody is screaming over. I can see it being real simple here. If you have a receipt from either Kmart or Sonic for a purchase, the charges will be dropped, otherwise you get to go to court and have it sorted out. Unfortunately that will still get more people off than what should be but its the only reasonable approach.
Register receipts have times.
I believe that makes you the moron ... "Glad I live in Canada" obviously refers to Canada's lackluster excuse for a police force / military, and where the most justice dished out to 12-19 year olds is a slap on the wrist and a "Don't do it again" called the Young Offender's Act.
278 people were arrested. What the hell is this? The message could have been gotten across just as easily by saying "You're trespassing. Everyone get the (censored) out before we arrest you." Anyone who'd done anything wrong and had brains in their head would leave. The innocent bystanders with brains in their heads would have ALSO left, being smart enough to avoid arrest. The people eating in Sonic would have finished their burger and fries and watched through the windows.
Time doesn't matter. Like it's been said - sleep schedules are different. If I choose to buy some food at 0030 that's my damned business ... and I'm likely to be a lot more awake then as well. Maybe I work the 5-12 shift at the store down the street. Who knows.
Where I lived up to about two weeks ago (on a main street in a LARGE city) we had plenty of ricers, muscle-car freaks, and bassheads driving up and down any time it was dark. There was a major parking lot just across the street. Couple 24/7 stores, pizza joints, bars. Never any raids.
And as far as the moron who suggested resisting arrest - well ... you're a moron. If they're close enough to consider it "resisting arrest" it's over. Give up. If you happen to be at a good distance, they haven't seen your face, they don't have dogs, and you're a track athlete who can clear a 6-foot chainlink or wooden fence on the run - go for it. Usually works.*
- M4H
* I'm not actually condoning running from police, you simpleminded twits. **
** "Simpleminded twits" is directed at anyone who actually thought I was serious, and thus probably the same people who would get all b1tchy about being insulted either way.
Don Vito Corleone
Elite
- Feb 10, 2000
- 30,029
- 66
- 91
Why not? Where is the harm in sitting in a parking lot? Unless the store has taken affirmative measures to exclude the teenagers, there is nothing wrong with them hanging around there.
iamme: that is the exact situation that I don't like but would allow for a cut and dry approach to dealing with the tickets. Also, when something like this is done, either a photocopy or original of the receipt should be kept but at minimum, a stamp would have to be placed on the receipt so it could not be used by multiple people. Now this doesn't help little johnny that went with his mom into the store to buy something and she bought something but he didn't.
(Moderately imperfect solution to a totally imperfect problem.)
For the record: I don't believe buying something as an afterthought (AKA a pack of gum or even a pack of smokes) entitles you to hang in the parking lot for hours on end. What ever happened to getting together and hanging out at your house and rotate amongst the house of your friends?
(Moderately imperfect solution to a totally imperfect problem.)
For the record: I don't believe buying something as an afterthought (AKA a pack of gum or even a pack of smokes) entitles you to hang in the parking lot for hours on end. What ever happened to getting together and hanging out at your house and rotate amongst the house of your friends?
What if I was just browsing? My friends and I have, on occasion, just wandered on over to the 24x7 Wal-Mart just to wander around and see if there was anything we wanted, found nothing, and left. You going to arrest us on our way to the car b/c we don't have a receipt?
"A little" overboard?
Yeah, and Noah endured a little rain.
Your argument is based on "guilt by association." Fights broke out in that lot last week, so the people there this week must be criminals.
I agree that, most likely, many of the people in those lots were indeed loitering. But that's no excuse to round up EVERYONE and arrest them. And any decent police officer who found someone loitering illegally would tell the offender to leave and not come back. But being arrested for LOITERING!? That's asinine under virtually any circumstance.
The police have also guaranteed themselves absolutely no chance of convicting the people there who truly were guilty of criminal tresspas by their behavior.
I live in Ames IA, a very small city, but a college city (Iowa State University) We have a few stores open 24/7. Wal-Mart, and Hy-Vee (a grocery store chain). 12:30 on summer, or even during the school year, is not late to go shopping, in a small city like Ames there could be 40 people or more in one of these stores. In a BIG city I could imagine more.
Now all people there were probably not innocent, but still, geesh, your claim that no one shops at 12:30 is utter nonsense.
i almost always do my shopping that late...cause i'm usually up till around 2 anyways and there are no lines in the store at 12:30.
also if im making a run for beer, 12:30 is not late
also if im making a run for beer, 12:30 is not late
Great.
My receipts usually don't make it to the car with me (they get tossed in the garbage can outside the store).
At that point I'd be pulling debit/credit transaction records.
Of course if you paid cash, you're screwed.
Viper GTS
i thought police cant make arrest without credible evidence or high suspicion of criminal activity, i dont think a little girl or a kid with a store reciept count as hard evidence, the govt there will be losing a lot of money from the sueing people, this is just idiotic
to all who say that noone shops at 12:30 am... the local 24 hours walmart always has atleast 25 - 50 people in them. when you factor in the weekends, a sonic, and the movie theater, triple that number, easily. my friends and i go watch a movie and then get a late dinner all the time. we then sit and just talk about stuff that happened that week. so what? i paid only $4.50 for my meal, does that mean i should not be allowed to sit and talk at the mcdonalds for a while?
good call.
425 people being arrested might be a little over the top... but then again they were all tresspassing, i suppose if it was my kmart or sonic i would've done the same thing... kinda makes me wonder what is going to happen this weekend... think there is going to be a massive crowd there again?! :Q
There's a big frickin' difference between cops arresting a sole burglar and having a fleet of cop cars swarm into a parking lot and arrest hundreds of youths who aren't posing a threat or danger to bystanders. The authorities want some respect from young people, eh? They certainly didn't accomplish anything in Houston but breed contempt.
I give all Americans bad reputations? Look buddy, there's a value system in this country called checks and balances. They make laws but they have to expect a certain level of lawlessness. Here in Pennsylvania local cops can't use radar to measure your speed on the highway. Most people speed at least some of the time but if speed laws were always enforced, the system would break under the sheer weight of endless violations. Speed limits are unrealistic but they are there to satisfy the insurance industry and the safety nazis. Denying cops the use of radar allows people to get away with speeding to a certain degree, but not completely. Checks and balances. We don't want a police state like China. A certain controlled level of lawlessness and civil disobedience is necessary for a healthy society.
Again, cops are too damn jail happy. You don't jail kids hanging out in a parking lot. Pathetic. But the checks and balances system should prevail in the end: a few lawsuits slapped against the city of Houston should give the authorities a little lesson on how you enforce laws in this country: the consequences must match the actions. If you jail kids for loitering, you should fry Clinton for lying under oath while being President. Houston and their cops failed miserably.
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