Remember Matt? He was detained by an off-duty police officer who was employed as a security guard by the Home Depot because he did not show his receipt. Matt complained about this to the Home Depot and received an apology from Frank Blake, the CEO. He also filed a formal complaint with the Metropolitan police. He says the police found his complaint to be unfounded.
My complaint to the police department was determined by them to be unfounded. The investigating official told me that the police officer was working off-duty employment to provide security at Home Depot, and therefore her actions weren’t those of the police department. He also stated that she had the right to detain me in her capacity providing security at Home Depot, even though she was wearing a full Metropolitan Police Dept uniform.
We’re not exactly shocked that the Metropolitan police would shrug this off as “not their problem”, but it’s still frustrating that they don’t take responsibility for people who are wearing their uniform. Since you were able to resolve the issue with Home Depot, however, we’d say your efforts were not in vain.
Anyone out there know more about Washington D.C.’s shoplifting laws?
(Photo: Marike79 )
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Remember the Oscar(R) winning movie “Crash”? Imagine off-duty police in uniform pulling your Congressman’s car over then giving his wife a cavity search. I wonder if the
police will find that complaint to be unfounded.
Anyway, say I work as a “Ronald McDonald” clown for McDonald’s in D.C.. I get a private gig at a children’s birthday party wearing my “Ronald” costume and expose my “unit.” Would McDonald’s be held liable? Not a great analogy, but that’s my take.
Seeing how private Black Water mercenaries are working in US Military-looking uniforms are given full military rights/powers/privileges with double the pay and none of the drawbacks (no real discipline, not bound by US civil law, US military law, nor any Iraqi law), I’m shocked to hear how anybody can be surprised to read this post. If Wal-mart paid enough, I’m sure there will be a boatload of Metro police lining up to apply for receipt checkers!