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20th May 2020, 12:12 AM | #121 |
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20th May 2020, 12:50 AM | #122 |
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Where did I mention race? Perhaps you should read what I actually wrote instead of going off in all directions with your guns blazing.
BTW - I have nothing to apologize for. In a near 25 year career I had one complaint laid against me and that was by a bar bouncer who complained that I embarrassed him in front of his fellow bouncers and bar patrons as I loudly told him that he was causing too many problems with his heavy handedness and should be fired. He was fired. His two fellow bouncers agreed with me and gave statements to that effect. Eleven patrons who saw what happened and heard the exchange also offered their support to me but only three statements were taken. I was cleared. The bouncer remained fired and I continued to be welcomed during my solo walk-throughs of the bar by both staff and patrons. Since you asked - as a member of Royal Canadian Mounted Police there were very few black people in the areas I was stationed. I only arrested one Afro-American for being part of a two man hit team who kidnapped a pimp out of Vancouver for the purposes of killing him. Both surrendered peacefully when I arrested the pair of them at a campsite with the pimp in the trunk of their stereotypical green Lincoln Continental (yep - they were even dressed like they came directly from central casting!). I did work in small towns with large populations of First Nation peoples though. I usually had no trouble carrying out my duties as I earned respect through open and honest communication and using force only when necessary. I also coached youth hockey, basketball, baseball, and joined whatever local service clubs were operating in the towns. That way the community got to know me as an individual outside of my job. Trust me - when it is 1:00 AM and the local bar is getting out and 80-100 well-oiled patrons are leaving - I better have the respect of the populace because many times I was by myself and my nearest backup was at home in bed. I know the job. I know when my fellow officers become too much like the orcs they are supposed to be protecting everyone from. The idea of "command authority" and demanding instant compliance has wormed its way into too many police officers. Some out of no proper training - some because they are being trained that way. Whatever the reason - the idea of police officers treating each situation like it is a life threatening ordeal that they will be lucky to escape from alive is becoming a terrible mindset I see too often. As a cop you need to keep calm and de-escalate situations. Just because you have superior numbers does not mean that you should not worry about the situation escalating into a violent takedown. Police officers should see violent takedowns for such offences as described in the OP as being a sign of poor policing - not as a victory for the "good guys". Edited to add: Just in case anybody has gotten the idea that I was working in some sort of Andy Griffith's town of Mayberry - during my career I was shot at twice and stabbed once resulting in a collapsed lung. Although they were small towns - they were not idyllic by any means. One town that had an area population of 600 people had nine murders in one year when I was there in the 1980s. |
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20th May 2020, 02:07 AM | #123 |
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20th May 2020, 02:10 AM | #124 |
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20th May 2020, 03:08 AM | #125 |
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20th May 2020, 03:24 AM | #126 |
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20th May 2020, 03:26 AM | #127 |
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There's a lot of variation in SUVs to be fair, I can fit a full size under counter kitchen appliance in the back of my Mk2 RAV4 without removing or folding the back seats, you'd struggle to get a single full size suitcase in the back of my wife's 3 door Grand Vitara despite the fact that it's footprint is as large, if not larger.
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20th May 2020, 04:43 AM | #130 |
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But you're certain it's not just plain racism, right?
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Perhaps they thought '**** this, we just don't need the hassle, we'll buy a tv elsewhere', but it doesn't matter. People return TVs without being assaulted by policemen every day
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Is anyone counting? Are there official figures? Somehow I doubt it - if shooting people isn't recorded then I doubt a simple beating warrants record. |
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20th May 2020, 05:31 AM | #132 |
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20th May 2020, 05:48 AM | #133 |
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This is about the actual existence of alternate stories, ones with more information than the one provided in the OP. I just said they exist and before I could respond I got accused of "making up and pulling out of your arse!"
An alternate link was even provided by another poster before that accusation was leveled. Yes, it's industrial grade stupid. |
20th May 2020, 05:56 AM | #134 |
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20th May 2020, 06:06 AM | #135 |
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But rather than just post the link you went all 'google it yourself'. As I say, the mark of a man losing an argument. The form is clear, you make the claim, you provide the evidence. If someone's missed something, then the posts are all conveniently numbered to enable you to reference them.
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20th May 2020, 06:17 AM | #136 |
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20th May 2020, 07:35 AM | #137 |
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No. Like I said,
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You seem committed to ignoring or misunderstanding what I've said, and then attacking me on the basis of that ignorance or misunderstanding.
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20th May 2020, 07:55 AM | #138 |
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But they did because they could. As I say, it doesn't matter.
Quote:
EDIT: I'm a big fan of 'what are we missing here', and I really hope there's something here that makes sense of this, but, given the past history of US LEO's and their interactions with minorities, I'm afraid I find it a reasonable, working assumption that US cops were racists and decided to just go with that, confident that none of their colleagues will dobb them in (Something that seems to happen in a vanishingly rare number of cases, if at all) and that their superiors and union will duck, dodge, pip dive and duck to get them off a charge and that the very, very worst that will happen to them is that they will have to go find a job in the city down the road. Were there any sort of robust and honest investigation of any of the many previously reported instances of policemen assaulting innocent minorities, my view would be different. If there were a whole slew of officer reports every time a policeman hides drugs on someone or shoots someone or beats someone up then my underlying view might change. But there isn't. For every single incident of policemen being 'bad cops' while other policemen watch them do it, the sum total of 'blue on blue' reporting is so close to zero as to be pointless. These people are wearing uniforms also worn by people who have assaulted and killed minorities with impunity for the last 50 years which is incidentally the same uniform worn by those'good cops' who have singularly failed to police their own. In light of this, it is not fantastic to me to believe that these policemen assaulted this man because he was a black man with a big telly and they didn't like it. |
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20th May 2020, 08:06 AM | #139 |
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20th May 2020, 08:13 AM | #140 |
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I'm interested in this part, the reason being that in the UK you'd be hard pushed to get a retailer to accept a return under the circumstances we see here.
The best outcome you'd probably get is a credit note to use against something else in the store/chain. If it's the same stateside then perhaps that is where the upset that led to the row that led to the beatdown started? |
20th May 2020, 08:15 AM | #141 |
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Cleared it up some more now. Although the source may be disuptable. From here: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/249850.pdf "There are no comprehensive statistics available on problems with police integrity, and no government entity collects data on all criminal arrests of law enforcement officers in the United States. " |
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20th May 2020, 08:19 AM | #142 |
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It is generally the same stateside.
Here's the actual Sam's Club policy: https://www.samsclub.com/content/returns |
20th May 2020, 08:22 AM | #143 |
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20th May 2020, 08:23 AM | #144 |
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20th May 2020, 08:35 AM | #145 |
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The circumstances surrounding the beatdown handed to Marvia and Derek Gray. The specific circumstances that led directly to the beatdown are somewhat vague and I wonder if the refusal of a full/partial/credited refund under the conditions of sale have anything to do with it? |
20th May 2020, 08:40 AM | #146 |
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I'm just trying to understand what about the circumstances would make it difficult to get a refund in the UK. John Lewis offer returns within 35 days for any reason, Hughes 14 days, Tesco 30 days, Sainsburys 30 days, Currys / PC World 21 days, and those are the only ones I've bothered to look at. The Sam's Club policy posted just upthread says just to bring an item in for a refund, and that they prefer a receipt but they'll try and process a return without one. (I can imagine it might be difficult to get a refund once the police started the confrontation, but that wouldn't explain why the confrontation started.) So why would you "be hard pushed to get a retailer to accept a return under the circumstances we see here"?
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20th May 2020, 08:49 AM | #147 |
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20th May 2020, 08:55 AM | #148 |
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20th May 2020, 08:57 AM | #149 |
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Return of non faulty goods bought in person is at the retailer's discretion in the UK, although if the retailer has a published policy they are obliged to stick to it. Personally I don't think he'd have had much trouble, a lot of retailers will allow buyer's remorse returns, especially the bigger retailers, for customer service reasons and if the return was linked to a customer who felt (rightly or wrongly) that they'd been treated badly due being a member of a protected category most shops in the UK imho would go out of their way to try and be accommodating and allow a return.
Actually, even if you weren't in a protected category I think most shops will go out of their way for a customer who claims to have been badly treated these days. ETA: Ninja'd by Dave Rogers himself! |
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20th May 2020, 09:03 AM | #150 |
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20th May 2020, 09:07 AM | #151 |
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There's a lot of variance hidden behind "try and process a return without a receipt." It could very well include "... but good luck trying to get anything back from an unboxed big-ticket item with no receipt."
If there's one thing I've learned from r/talesfromretail, it's that there's infinite opportunities for a returns process to rub someone the wrong way. The entire range from "clerk/corporate is being an ass" to "the customer is running a scam" is covered. In between are plenty of opportunities for a customer to become justifiably and unjustifiably frustrated with the process. So I figure this could be something like the clerk asking for a receipt and the customer unreasonably venting their rage at earlier and unrelated treatment, triggering a call to the cops and unfortunate (racist?) escalation. Or it could be something like the clerk thinking "a black man trying to do a return without a receipt, boop to that, calling the cops". Or it could be something else entirely. I assume the grievance described in the suit is legitimate, but I'm still curious about how it got to that point at the returns counter. Were the racist cops just hanging around, spring loaded to throw a beating at the first black man who appeared upset? Was there a minor but valid concern that got waaay overblown by racist pigs? |
20th May 2020, 09:08 AM | #152 |
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Same day returns are probably common (I used tower in retail, but long ago).
However, in this case there are other circumstances. First, the incident when he tried to pick up the TV. Secondly, when they decided to return the TV, it was explicitly because they were upset about the first incident. So pretty easy to imagine things escalating from there. |
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20th May 2020, 09:14 AM | #153 |
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I must have been missing the "without receipt" qualifier from this incident in the several articles I skimmed (I'm not sure how I got sucked into caring about this incident in the fist place).
When I worked retail, we'd be very skeptical about giving a refund on a high dollar value item without a receipt. But nowadays, I'd think all of that stuff is usually captured by the store when the purchase is made. The scanned TV barcode, the customer name from their credit card, and the time and date of the transaction all go into the store's database. I guess the guy could have paid cash. |
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20th May 2020, 09:20 AM | #154 |
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I can see that the overall emotional temperature could have been pretty high, but in some ways that makes it worse from the store's point of view. If you've had a customer unjustly accused of theft in your shop, which accusation you've defended him from at the time, and then says he's bringing goods back because he's really upset at having been so accused, and you've got the faintest concept of good customer service, then you're going to do the best you can to make it easy for him in the hope that he eventually calms down, realises it wasn't the store's fault, and decides to shop there again. And for a policeman to then enter the situation and accuse him for a second time of a theft that the supposed victim specifically denied, you've got a perfect storm. The strange thing is not that he reacted angrily when the first officer tried to detain him; it's that anyone could have expected him to be perfectly calm and rational in the circumstances.
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20th May 2020, 09:21 AM | #155 |
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20th May 2020, 09:31 AM | #156 |
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I can imagine several ways the return might have been a problem:
- No receipt - Item is unboxed - Item has damage - Item is missing parts - No item in box - Customer becomes belligerent when clerk proposes to look inside the box to confirm the item and all parts are being returned - Customer wants cash but the store refunds credit card purchases back to the card - Customer wants a refund but the store is only offering store credit - There's no problem with the return, but the clerk is being a douchebag - There's no problem with the return, but the clerk is being a racist douchebag - There's no problem with the return, but the customer is getting belligerent due to misplaced anger over previous incidents Etc. It's a long list. I haven't even gotten into all the variations on (racist) cop hanging around the returns counter instigating things. I assume the grievance described in the suit is legitimate, but I'm still curious about how it got to that point at the returns counter. |
20th May 2020, 09:35 AM | #157 |
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20th May 2020, 09:44 AM | #158 |
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20th May 2020, 09:55 AM | #159 |
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I worked at Sam's Club for eleven years as an electronics associate and wireless associate, and then almost three years as a Member Service associate with some marketing duties thrown in, until Jan 2018. I'm literally an expert and trained many people at the selling, and returning, electronics specifically. It was also my 'duty' (it was totally not my responsibility, but I could figure out systems better than the people whose job it actually was) several times to get video evidence off our systems to give to police (my favorite being the several times I pulled video off of the display video surveillance systems to help id people stealing video surveillance systems).
When someone buys a large tv they can't safely fit in their vehicle (there are times where the box will fit, but on larger sets it's best not to risk torquing them and cracking the screen in the middle), the process is to make a photocopy of the receipt and tape it to the box. The box is put locked in the 'cage' where Club Pickup carts are also stored. I don't know the layout of this club specifically, but it appears they were pointing towards where the 'cage' is in the video before the cops come in. The woman in the green vest is likely the COS (check-out supervisor) who also has duties such as being responsible for the keys to the cage (Member Services like I was tends to have a copy as well, and of course the Club Pickup shopper). The customer keeps the original receipt and we would make explicitly clear that whoever came in with the original copy of the receipt would be the person we would release the item to. In the case of televisions the receipt matches not only with all the data you'd expect such as register, time, amount, member, but also the serial number of the specific television. This is also on the box. We had a log in the cage with who put a hold cart in, and who took it out when, so if an item was released and someone else came in for the same one later we could track down what happened. My club was especially good at this though (and I'm told we were outstanding at tracking down issues and keeping these policies working, but we were also a small club with the record for longest time without an accident due to staffing being inadequate, but more adequate than elsewhere). It's probably this club was not utilizing this log. Now I don't know exactly what happened here. Some people would take these processes as personal accusations, especially regular business members. I often had to enforce rules against very angry employees of business members, and often saved the businesses in question a lot of problems with their employees trying to steal from them. However, that doesn't sound like what was going on here. It doesn't even sound like the normal 'don't you trust me!' trying to pick up mom's tv without the receipt. For whatever reason some associate or just the cop convinced themselves this gentleman was trying to take someone else's tv, despite the process help ensuring that doesn't happen. They might have thought they were trying to get a second tv with the same receipt. But again, the receipt has the serial number that you match to the copy AND the box, that is in a locked cage. This or the member taking umbrage at the standard security process and the cop's spurious accusation of theft the first time pissed the member off enough to just want to return the tv. It is possible they let him take the tv without the normal process because the second associate remembered the transaction. I doubt that unless that club is WAY more lax than policy directs. I could go through the return process (even without the receipt we could use the membership number to pull up enough information to process a return if the physical item is being returned, if we can't find it in system then it either can't be returned, or we make judgement calls that often involved taking back clothing years old and not even from Sam's Club to please some Karen). It doesn't matter though, because they didn't even get that far it looks. The Membership desk isn't in view in the video, so it is possible the TV is already there, but then the argument should be happening at the desk (which could also be in the direction they're pointing) if that were the case. The members are upset, but I've dealt with way worse many times. I've seen small old women deal with worse many times. To be fair, the COS seems to be dealing with emotional members pretty well. Now we're outside my actual expertise, but when the cop instant insists on cuffing the man he done goofed. It's sad that minimum wage Membership desk people and a bit better paid COS can deal with emotional members like that every day, but a cop comes in an he needs cuffs to deal with the upset dude. Sure, I can't hear what upset dude is saying, but if it wasn't enough to get the associates defenses up, it wasn't enough to need cuffs. I've dealt with members who needed cuffed, and no associate would have the posture here if that were the case. If the associates were trying to eject the members from the club and deny the return for cause, that will come out. If the members were making threats, that will come out. Sam's Club has horrible associate practices and defer to member to a criminal degree, but that doesn't look to be the case here yet. I'm provisionally going with an associate or two got it in their heads these people 'must' be scammers and ignored evidence to the contrary (I've had to deal with that a lot in the past too, and clean up from another associate's 'gut feeling'). It's easy enough for such associates/management to steamroll everyone else if no one stands up and say 'no, they're right, policy says do the return'. I've also been the one refusing to process what I found to be a clearly bad-faith return (missing parts or an out-of-date associate return usually, and I didn't want my numbers on the return record). If that isn't the case, it will be trivial to show. The documentation that Sam's Club has would have falsified many of the assertions of these member if those assertions were in fact not true, so I'm going with everything up to the cop coming in and trying to cuff the guy as being as stated by the members. |
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20th May 2020, 09:57 AM | #160 |
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When I read they returned the tv, my thought was they returned it so they wouldn't be in possession of it anymore. It had already caused them enough trouble, and they didn't want the "cop magnet" around anymore.
Pure assumption by me, but until we hear about it from the people involved, it's as good as anyone's assumption as to why they returned the tv. |
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