Meet Anenide Cherry. Walmart banned her from entering their Palm Bay, FL store after she was caught using her three kids to steal merchandise worth over $300. Loss prevention officers observed Cherry’s tikes, ages 6, 12, and 15, bagging unscanned items at the self-checkout counter. From Local6:
Cherry paid $113 in goods but had a total of $400 worth of stolen merchandise sitting in her cart, police said. Cherry was stopped while a male companion accompanying her bolted out the door, according to reports.
Cherry was charged with retail grand theft and asked to sign an affidavit stating that she will never return to the Palm Bay Walmart. She will not be ordered to wear a sign saying: “I Stole From Walmart.”
Woman Banned For Life From Wal-Mart [Local6.com]
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@guroth:
“Also, 33 year old mother with a 15 year old kid. Why am I not surprised?”
And also two more kids. Stereotypical leech of society
So anyone with 3 or more children is some sort of societal parasite? Glad to hear it — I’ll be sure to call my mom and tell her.
@ogoldberg:
“Here, you have a huge picture of a woman’s face to identify her as an unqualified terrible person for stealing from thieves with her children (most likely so that they can have something to eat).
I think your tinfoil hat is on crooked.
This woman stole. While I agree that it is unfair to make racist and classist assumptions about why this woman stole, that is exactly what you are doing. For all you know her kids took $200 worth of DVD’s. Don’t turn her into the starving beggar stealing a loaf of bread to feed her children. That’s why this fine society has foodstamps and welfare (another rant I’d rather not get on right now…)
I know we all hate Walmart here, but just because a business has some negative press, doesn’t mean stealing from them is justified.
@ogoldberg:
You call Wal-Mart thieves, but that’s a bit of a stretch. Wal-Mart (as a corporation) complies with United States minimum wage laws, so if you feel that their employees are paid too little, your issue is with the US minimum wage standard, not Wal-Mart. Like any business, they are loathe to pay more than the market rate for a given commodity, and that includes labor. The cost of labor is governed by supply and demand, just like everything else. Unskilled labor is in great supply, and is therefore cheap.
I’ve lived on minimum wage, and it wasn’t easy. It’s my optimistic wish that no one has to live under those conditions. However, the key to earning more is not in expecting employers to be more generous- to pay you more than the market rate- but by increasing your value as a worker.
To call Wal-Mart thieves just simply isn’t fair- they aren’t actually stealing from anyone, just paying a price that you find unfair. I don’t necessarily think it’s a fair price, either, but it is what the market will bear and the government will (for now) allow.
How is this news? Woman shoplifts, gets caught. Move on.
@Steel_Pelican: I guess I’m different than you in some fundamental ways. You allow U.S. law and the corporate interests that drive the free market act as “North” on your moral compass.
I believe that just because you can get away with something, doesn’t mean that it’s ok. You argument doesn’t even support itself. Is it only ok to commit a crime of morality if you get away with it? Or are you simply saying that only those with enough power and resources to manipulate the free market and legal system should be allowed to define our sense of ethics?
@Yourhero88: “While I agree that it is unfair to make racist and classist assumptions about why this woman stole, that is exactly what you are doing.”
I disagree. First of all, I have already said that my point isn’t necessarily to defend her actions, so much as to critique the article, the fact that it was placed on this particular blog, and the reader response to it.
Simply because I said she was stealing from thieves doesn’t mean that I am supporting her act. Rather, I am placing it in the context of a much bigger picture in order for people to think about prioritizing their anger.
The main point of positing my “most likely so they have something to eat” comment was simply to give a new perspective to a one-sided comment thread and get the people posting hate filled comments to at least question themselves before they sentence someone to death on no evidence.
as for your comment, “That’s why this fine society has foodstamps and welfare (another rant I’d rather not get on right now…)” It’s much easier to write me off with name-calling than to actually put any effort or thought into understanding my point. I’m very curious why you have time to call me a “tin foil hat wearer” but no time to engage in a discussion about real issues…
“just because a business has some negative press, doesn’t mean stealing from them is justified.”
I actually agree with this point, unfortunately it has nothing to do with the the discussion at hand. Again, I’m not defending her theft, just placing it in the context of a bigger picture. But you hit on something very important here. My problem with Walmart isn’t simply that it has bad press, it is that it treats real people, you and me, and our friends and family, and the communities we all live in, like dirt. The company is so big, that we are all effected by their actions in ways we aren’t always even aware of–and, no, that is not my “tin foil hat” talking, it is economic forces that affect us all, even those of us who sit in our comfortable homes feeling insulated from the world.
My goal isn’t to just sit in my apartment spreading some nut-case theory, I am simply trying to provoke thought here, and a rational discussion of real life issues that touch all of our lives, whether or not we are aware of it. I hope I am at least causing some people to think a little bit about that.
The chains of events that lead one person to behave one way, and lead another person to behave a different way are interlinked. It’s easy to sit back and judge others for their behavior from your computer, but the things that keep one person from ending up like any other person are often simply the pure luck of being born into a certain family in a certain neighborhood and going to a certain school, and meeting certain people, and getting certain jobs.
You are where you are as much due to pure luck as due to your character. But the fact that you have the character you have comes as much from the luck of having the upbringing you had as it does to the luck of your genetic pre-dispositions, and the important events and relationships you have had in your life by pure luck that shaped you into the person you are today. You aren’t that different than me, you aren’t that different than Anenide Cherry, and you aren’t that different than Sam Walton. Whenever we try to create those distinctions, we are simply fooling ourselves. We all have the capacity to be in someone else’s shoes, we need to spend more effort actualy doing it.
@ogoldberg:
I agree with you 100%. I didnt really think of it that way, but after reading your comment, I think you are absolutely right. Posting someone’s picture on the internet for stealing is just not right. Stealing isnt right, but two wrongs dont make a right.
Also, so true that many of us are where we are by pure luck of being born into a certain family, certain neighborhood, going to a certain schools, etc. Not saying that it’s ok to shoplift, but I think people should keep that in the back of their minds when judging others and making nasty ignorant comments.
The summary says that he stole MORE than $300 worth of items. The quote says that she only stole $287 (She paid $113 for $400 worth of stuff, 400-113=287).
Obviously she’s a thief and all that but there’s no need for the editor to stretch the truth to make the loss seem like more than it was. It was under 300, not more than 300.
@jjason82: “Cherry paid $113 in goods but had a total of $400 worth of stolen merchandise sitting in her cart, police said.”
Paid $113. $400 in stolen merchandise. So, as I am reading it, she had about $513 worth of goods in the cart, of which she paid for $113.
I agree with the rest, typical leech of society that keeps popping out kids.
Puh-leez! If it were a starving mother taking food for her children, it wouldn’t have made headlines like this.
Let’s not turn her into a struggling single mother, only doing what she needs to survive.
I call bs.
@fatal616: so your saying that my mom is a societal parasite beacuse she has 3 kids……. wow you and guroth are agood little communist population control supporting bastards aren’t you?
@Ncisfan:
*good little
To the person who said it was not possible at the U-Scan, you are wrong, very wrong. Wal~Mart does not use the scale checks on the self-checkouts because of the amount of items people ring up there. The bags can’t be sat on the holders if there are too many and when they are taken off and put in the buggy if the scale check is turned on, the cashier has to continually override it. Which is why this can in fact and does in fact happen.