Walmart Security Guard Gets Head-butted, Sat On, Peed On
It was a rough day at the office for a Michigan Walmart security guard last week. The Muskegon News reports a guard was physically abused and humiliated as he tried to stop two female shoplifters from making off with some goods that they found priced too high.
Things started getting crazy when the guard tried to block one of the women from entering the passenger's seat of the getaway vehicle. Reporter Heather Lynn Peters writes:
At that point, Cole "head butted" the security guard, who fell backward into the vehicle, Regan said.
"The bottom of the body fell into the passenger's seat and the front part in the back of the car," Regan said. "Then she sat on him. He grabbed his phone and called 911, but she fought for the phone and then urinated on him."
And then the women drove off with the security guard before police eventually caught them.
Once you're out in the parking lot, blocking someone from entering her car, maybe you deserve what you get. The local justice system apparently agrees, charging both women with robbery but not with kidnapping or aggravated assault.
The court that really matters, though, is that of public opinion. Is there any sympathy out there for the zealous security guard? Or did he have it coming?
Police: Security guard head-butted, sat on, driven away at Wal-Mart [Muskegon News]
(Photo: k.james)
(Thanks, Jason!)
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Comments:
While the guard certainly overstepped his boundaries, nobody deserves to get headbutted and peed on. Let's not forget in our zeal to be good consumerists that the security guard is actually a human being who... doesn't deserve to get headbutted and peed on.
For a security guard he did a poor job of stopping two women. If it was plain as day that they stole stuff, good job of trying to stop them.
Of course the counter point is not to be overzealous at it..
@Azuaron: I agree, they had a right (i guess) to defend themselves from his attempt, but she continued to sit on him and pee on him.
What about interfering with someone trying to call 911. That is a serious crime, is it not?
The shit is insured, and you're not supposed to go gung ho. I think we've seen plenty of times before where if the guard goes above and beyond bad things happen.
I don't advocate or condone assault against anyone under any circumstances, so I wouldn't side with the alleged perpetrators here. But I also don't think the security guard should have run after them. It was $45 in merchandise, and nothing "valuable" like electronics. He put himself directly in harms way for $45 of goods - why? They had already left and were at the car.
One of the women had been released April 3 after serving prison time for a bank robbery! And this was the same woman who sat on the guard, and she weighed 230 pounds, which gives you an idea of why the security guard couldn't get away from her.
@Azuaron: Once they are out of the store, the security guard has no right to detain anyone. As a matter of fact, the guard has no right to detain you INSIDE the store, either. He can only ask you to follow him to a back room.
Why do you think that so many employees get fired for chasing down shoplifters? It's because the company can be sued.
@Nogard13: You might be wrong about that. A store security guard actually has the right to detain a shoplifter for a reasonable amount of time before the police arrive.
I'm not sure what difference it makes whether inside the store or not. Although the parking lot is usually still the store's property.
@Azuaron: I think if he was so close he could step in front of the passenger side door, he's close enough to get a look at the license plate. He should have done that instead.
@Nogard13: I agree. Once someone leaves the mighty doors of Wal-Mart, let them go and call the cops. I wouldn't put my life on the line for a $29.99 DVD.
@UCLAri: I received my engineering degree in Muskegon and I wonder where this store is located, but they did not have one ten years ago.
"Once you're out in the parking lot, blocking someone from entering her car, maybe you deserve what you get."
Deserve? You thought that the security guard, though maybe overzealous, deserved to be hurt and humiliated?
That's actually pretty disgusting.
The guy was just trying to do what was right, of course he didn't deserve that. When someone trying to uphold right from wrong is harmed by scum of society, of course they don't deserve it. His "job description" be damned.
Doesn't Walmart fire their people for trying to physically detain lowlife, scummy thieves?
My sympathies are with the guard. Even if he wasn't in the right to stand in the way of someone entering her car, she threw the first punch by head-butting him. If she felt threatened, she had lots of other options. Calling 911, for instance. Oops, I guess shoplifters don't see that as an option.
@Anathema777: Yeah, deserves is a very strong word. No one deserves to be assaulted and humiliated like that. He made mistakes in how he tried to apprehend the perpetrators, but it's not as if those mistakes somehow made it okay for a woman to assault him.
He will think twice the next time he feels like Robocop.
Way back when, my wife actually took a job at Walmart. While there, she and a lot of other employees saw a man walk in, pick up an electric boat motor and simply walk out. Instead of trying to stop him, they simply called the other Walmarts in the area and told them to be on the lookout. Sure enough, he went to another Walmart and tried to get a refund. They called the police and he was arrested.
@kcvaliant:There's a misprint in the article. It states two women but when I looked at the pictures it's actually two linebackers with wigs on.
Thieves are scum. There was a time where we would all congratulate a security guard or honest citizen who went out of their way to prevent theft. Now we question whether he deserved getting urinated on while going above and beyond his job. Sad.
@Anathema777: Agreed. If the security guard had been female and a male thief had peed on her, that would probably be considered a sexual assault and so not okay to say "deserved".
@UCLAri: I can think of a few people that I would like to headbutt and pee on...and they would deserve it.
The guard may have been overzealous, but nobody deserves that kind of humiliation. If the culprits were male and the guard female and they'd peed on her, it would have been considered sexual assault and calling it "deserved" would have provoked the outrage of the entire feminist community, and rightly so. Whether or not it actually was sexual wouldn't have mattered; anything where a penis is involved in a violent act gets characterized that way, so the reverse should be true as well.
Just because it's a man being humiliated in that way doesn't make it okay. He shouldn't have to suck it up and deal.
He may have been foolish but foolishness doesn't deserve assault, and they should be charged with assault. If they had just pushed past him, I would say no, but they elevated the situation beyond self-defense when they abducted him and peed on him.
@squablow: Try to change American tort law then. That's the whole reason you can't stop criminals now.
@Shadowman615: Actually, in many cases, the retailer is renting the store from the property owner. Think of a shopping plaza. Ever notice how the buildings, regardless of what logo is on them, have the same exterior look? That's because they're all owned by a real estate company, who then leases them to businesses. The security guard has rights, limited though they may be, inside the store, but once in the parking lot, they're no longer on property that the store is paying for - the parking lot is still the responsibility of the real estate co. Now, of course, there are stores built and owned by retailers. That's true pretty much anytime you see one that doesn't share a parking lot with anything else. In those cases, as long as the store bought the property in it's entirety, then the security guard's rights extend to the edge of that property.
Also worth noting, somewhere around the year 2000, the law changed to prevent shoplifters getting manhandled. Store security really shouldn't be touching you at all, even if you're a shoplifter. Why? Because they're store security with several full days worth of training - not a law enforcement official with months, and in some cases years of training.
@Chumas: $45 isn't worth potentially getting seriously hurt/losing your life over. Just as you said, the shit is insured. Still a shame he got messed up, though.
@squablow: I've heard that the definition of a hero is someone who gets other people killed. Average citizens should not take it upon themselves to exact vigilante justice.
What exactly is the point of having security guards then? They cant really stop you, cant hold you against your will, and if you hit the parking lot, they can do nothing. Seems like they only intimidate the "rookie" thieves/shoplifters. A more experienced one wouldnt even bat an eyelash.
Hope I am not oversimplifying here.
@Nogard13: Depends, this is a security guard. If they were also the LPO for example, they can make an arrest once the people are outside. In fact they probably would have had to wait until the people were explicitly outside the building to make the arrest just in case the shoplifters ditched the items on the premises or actually decided to pay for them.
As long as all the criteria to make an arrest are there, they can go ahead with it. While I'm not sure that's the case here, you can be arrested once you leave the store if you are in fact shoplifting.
2 people, one a habitual offender, charged with 2 felonies. Total bail was set at 50K. Am I the only one seeing that as a low amount for the level of the charges at hand?
I think assault with a dead-ugly weapon can be added, seeing the pictures...
@What The Geek: But, he didn't touch them. From what I can tell, he got in her way.
Even if he was in the way, and even if he had no detention rights, the uriniation served no purpose in preventing him from being a threat to her or a third party, and I'm pretty sure was an unwanted touching. Taking him with them is kidnapping - it doesn't sound like he was holding on to the car to try and Fred Flinstone heel-brake their getaway.
No, the security guard does not have the right to detain them. Write down the license plate and be done with it.
Still, how the women acted is a shame.
@wgrune: For some reason I picture your second sentence being said by someone with a slightly English accent wearing a monocle and holding a snifter full of brandy.
@balthisar: That's the thing - he didn't detain them outside the store. He probably should have had 911 called by someone in the store ahead of time (maybe he did, unclear, as authorities should have been notified when they were detained inside the store), and thus blocking the path would have been a delaying tactic to give police time to respond. Nothing wrong with delaying - only detaining.
@balthisar: That's the thing - he didn't detain them outside the store. He probably should have had 911 called by someone in the store ahead of time (maybe he did, unclear, as authorities should have been notified when they were detained inside the store), and thus blocking the path would have been a delaying tactic to give police time to respond. Nothing wrong with delaying - only detaining.
Those women were just trying to save money, so they could live better.
The security guard should have taken a polaroid, and gotten the license plate #. Let the cops handle it.
That being said, Assault, definitely.
@pecan 3.14159265: Watch Serenity lately (at least, that was the last time I heard that hero line)?
I know your other posts make it clear you are not arguing this, but how was he engaged in vigilante justice? They were detained *in* the store, and broke away. He had position and his feet were set (conjecture, but it sounds like it from the article), they were guilty of charging. They made first, and apparently all, contact. They detained him in the vehicle. I'm not sure where he engaged in vigilante justice.
Seriously, folks...who runs around pissing on people?
I'm guilty of joking about doing so on numerous occasions, but who does that? As far as I'm concerned, that lady has now earned "Super Villain" status in my book. Now she just needs a name...
Urealicious? Chupapissra? The Notorious P.I.S.S.?
Doesn't store policy say the guard can get fired for trying to stop shoplifters? Or maybe that's Home Depot I'm thinking of... anyway, charging the girls with shoplifting and nothing else seems appropriate to me. Whatever they did to the security guard was in self-defense.
a comet could hit a Walmart and I would laugh just as hard as reading this article. These swine that attacked the guard send them to a sausage factory.
Here is where I am torn. Corps have a tendency to generalize. Assume everyone is stealing and treat them so and we will catch the real thiefs.
Sure but at the expense of the dignity and sometimes safety of the bulk of customers who simply want to transact business and go about their day.
I have long felt that approach was wrong and what should happens is assume everyone is on the up and up and if you have proof of wrong doing come down on em like a ton of bricks.
@nbs2: "Detained" seems like such an official term for what probably amounted to the guard and a few clerks watching the women and telling them to stay put. While it may not be against the law to chase after shoplifters, it's against Wal-Mart's policy, and he broke policy to exact what he felt was rightful justice.
@Scuba Steve: Pretty sure by the time he walked the 3 miles to the electronics section he would have missed the shoplifters. But he could've used the camera on his cell phone, if he had one with him.
@valkyrievf2x: "Discouragement" is a better term than "intimidation", I think, but you have the idea right. Most people don't realize exactly how little power retail workers have against shoplifters. At one store that I worked at, our hands were pretty much tied when trying to apprehend someone. I could imply ("I noticed that there's an empty hanger for a wristband over here, and I saw that you and your friends were around there awhile today. Do you know where it went?") but even saying outright that they stole something was a big no-no. All I ever saw happen when we verified an incident was the security guard would ban them from the mall, call their parents if they were underage, and give us the merch. The 15-year-old trying to take eyeliner and nail polish likely doesn't know that, though.
This is not the case of a receipt checker being too overzealous; these women were actually shoplifting. At that point, the security guard has the right to detain them. They definitely should've been charged with assault, at the very least.