Alleged Shoplifter Dies After Being Caught by Walmart Employees

[proud2BlibKansan]

LITHONIA, Georgia — The Black Friday shopping weekend was, as expected, a wild and occasionally violent experience at some stores across the country. But the shopping madness turned deadly in Georgia, where a suspected shoplifter died while being apprehended by employees in a Walmart parking lot.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the alleged shoplifter took two DVD players from the Lithonia, Georgia, Walmart early Sunday morning. Authorities say that he walked out of the front door of the store, but was caught in the parking lot by two Walmart employees and a contract security guard.

Witnesses say that the alleged shoplifter was involved in a ” physical altercation” with the two employees and the security guard in the parking lot.

When police arrived on the scene, the alleged shoplifter was found to be unresponsive and bleeding from his nose and mouth. He was transported to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead.

more . . . http://fox4kc.com/2012/11/25/alleged-shoplifter-dies-after-being-caught-by-walmart-employees/

[SleeplessinSoCal]

1. This is getting way too much like the Anaconda Road Massacre

"The Anaconda Road Massacre was a deadly incident that occurred on April 21, 1920 during a miners strike in Butte, Montana's copper mines. A group of striking miners who were picketing near a mine of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company were fired upon by company guards, killing a miner named Tom Manning and injuring sixteen other miners. During the inquest into Manning's death, no one was found guilty, and his murder still remains officially unsolved."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Road_Massacre

[Coyotl]

4. Except, this is unrelated to any gunfighting, mine, group, union or strike, it is about shoplifting

so no, not at all like it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Well, other than THAT.................

[SleeplessinSoCal]

7. I see similarities in terms of a sea change.

The main factor being the employees turned on other employees in order to curry favor with the employer.

And it's not funny in the least.

[mythology]

11. Except this wasn't an employee

He wasn't killed while stealing food. He died while stealing a dvd player. There's no currying favor with some dark overlord. A scumbag died doing something selfish and stupid. I have far more sympathy for the other people involved in the incident. They have to live with this.

I don't think anybody was laughing at the death, but this isn't a case where you can draw a link between people being shot by other employees by the employer. I can assure you that Wal-Mart's official policy is that the employees are not supposed to pursue shoplifters. Partially because this can happen and partially because an employee could have been hurt. So this happened because an asshat stole, and then three other people ignored rules that would have prevented this. But the principle responsibility is on the guy who was stealing dvd players. Not Wal-Mart or even the employees.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

15. I grant you the facts are different.

I'm speaking of the turning of the tide which pits the working class against itself in a violent way. Up until now, we have been fighting each other with rhetoric.

[Norrin Radd]

16. My thoughts exactly, SleeplessinSoCal.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

25. Thanks. I was beginning to doubt my very strong, but immediate reaction to this event.

There's something very frightening about it. And I think its that we are being pitted against each other by those who have no concern for the working person. Especially if that working person wants some rights. The shoplifter was a pawn in this fight.

[Carolina]

38. But WE all pay for shoplifters

whether due to the lost store revenues or the court/incarceration process.

He wasn't stealing food or a blanket or something needed for SURVIVAL

It is a sad sitaution all around, but perhaps I'm turning cold since I do not feel sympathetic toward this particular thief. And sadly pitting the people against one another is as old as history and as American as baseball and apple pie.

[flamingdem]

21. Agree, this fits with the article posted here about Corporate America becoming cult like

I hope they charge them with first degree murder.

[Ed Suspicious]

29. Fuck that. You don't kill somebody for stealing a couple DVD players...

it's that simple.

[dlwickham]

27. you'd be wrong

I don't think employees stopping theft are attempting to curry favor

[Lars39]

28. Ask any Walmart employee about how important shrinkage is to "the Bonus".

[dlwickham]

37. why don't you just tell me and save me the trouble

I'm sure you'd love to

[Lars39]

39. Full time workers, ie, those that consistently are given 32 hours/week, are given a bonus

at the end of the year if shrinkage is kept below a certain percentage. So, yes, workers will do surprising things in order to get that bonus of a few hundred bucks, or the chance at full-time hours where they would receive that bonus. Of course, management bonuses are much more. The manager of the store I worked at received $30,000. This was 1985. Don't know what that translates into, given today's inflation.

[darkangel218]

2. Damn...

They weren't supposed to use force.. if an aleged thief didnt cooperate they should've called the cops.
Idiots like that give all security officers a bad name. It's a sad situation that could've been completely prevented by strict post orders.

[Whovian]

3. kicking

[niyad]

6. kicking

[Honeycombe8]

8. There are risks with a life of crime, I suppose. nt

[whopis01]

14. There are risks to jumping straight to execution without due process as well.

Of course I am sure there are those who feel the value of a person living a life of crime doesn't add up to that of a couple DVD players.

[Honeycombe8]

18. Sounds like the guy was resisting arrest. I saw a couple of WalMart incognito security officers

arrest a suspected shoplifter in the parking lot. So I've seen this before.

I'm walking out the door at WalMart when I hear yelling. I look, and there are two guys trying to arrest this big guy. One identifies himself as a police officer & shows something that I assume was a badge. The other guy starts to cuff him. And there ensues a fight. The guy resists, will not allow himself to be cuffed, he tries to hit the officer. The two officers get him down on his knees while guy's girlfriend hits the back of the police officer who is cuffing the guy. All the while the officers are saying, "I'm a police officer...I'm a police officer." The guy being cuffed and his girlfriend will not give up, until a police car arrives with backup.

A different policeman takes statements of witnesses (I'm one of them).

The girlfriend was arrested, too. You hit a police officer...you're goin' to jail.

At no time did I see the officers go over the line, intentionally try to hurt the guy, or even hit back at the girlfriend. But they did have to wrestle him to the ground.

The professional shoplifters know they've got a rap sheet, they're going to be hit with some time probably...they know they can get away, if they're lucky. Pretty stupid to fight with officers. They're going to have add'l charges, besides theft.

The shoplifting adds a LOT to the cost of products. That loss is passed along to the rest of us who pay for what we get.

[BlueMan Votes]

22. employee theft costs way more than shoplifting for most big stores.

if you want something to blame high prices on.

[Honeycombe8]

30. All theft adds to the cost of items we buy. They all should be arrested, if caught. nt

[BlueMan Votes]

32. in your previous post, you specifically called out shoplifting...

as being responsible for a LOT of the cost of products.
i was merely pointing out that employee theft is responsible for even more of that cost.

[whopis01]

34. He was resisting arrest. Resisting arrest by two Walmart employees and a contract security guard.

They were not police officers as was the case with the incident that you witnessed.

I'm not saying that the Walmart employees didn't have the legal right to detain him - they did have the right to do that. I just don't believe that Walmart or its employees have the moral right to use lethal force to prevent someone from walking off with two DVD players.

[TwilightGardener]

9. Might be on video--I think Wally World has cameras in all their

parking lots.

[flying rabbit]

10. killed a guy for minimum wage. nt

[Poll_Blind]

23. That appears to be the long and short of it, Sir. nt

PB

[Poll_Blind]

24. And not only that, but for a company which probably has a life insurance policy on them...

...which they do not even know about.

PB

[Honeycombe8]

31. The security guys are off duty policemen. More than min. wage. You think

they just walked up and for fun killed someone? You ever seen policemen in person try to arrest a guy who's resisting arrest? It's not easy to do, but there is established protocol. Nothing in what I read indicates that the police did anything not according to protocol.

[flying rabbit]

33. Nothing in the article says the security guard was an off duty policeman.

Two wal mart employees were involved in the altercation. Neither of us knows what really happened. No I dont think they did it for fun. Bottom line though: a guy was killed by some people making minimum wage to defend the profitability of wal mart. Hell when I was making minimum wage I was flipping burgers. I wouldn't have taken on some thugs just to ensure wendys didnt lose money.

[Iggo]

12. Death to shoplifters!!!

Kill! Kill! Kill!

[Supply Side Jesus]

13. positional asphyxiation

manslaughter... see you guys in years

[rbrnmw]

17. Wal-Mart strictly prohibits Chase and hold

I worked Loss Prevention there There was a very eerily similar incident in Cleveland Texas where a shoplifter died on the parking lot after being held down

[BlueMan Votes]

19. most stores do.

I used to do loss prevention for "Zayre" (who remembers THEM?) and also for Marshall Field's.
i almost got fired from Zayre for chasing a shoplifter across the parking lot.

did anyone from the store do any time for the cleveland tx incident? were charges even filed?

[Chiyo-chichi]

35. A grand jury declined to indict anyone. Walmart settled for $750,000.

http://houstonist.com/2007/05/18/walmart_agrees.php

[BlueMan Votes]

36. well...it IS texas.

most of the people on the grand jury probably wanted to give the walmart employees commendations.

one less black meth-head thief is how they see it.
it's not like a human life was lost, after all.

[catrose]

26. A worker at Randall's in Texas

chased a purse snatcher and retrieved the shopper's purse. He was fired because chase-and-hold was prohibited. But the shopper was very grateful and pleaded with Randall's to restore his employment. I'd have thought that a warning might be sufficient for the first time, but the store didn't see it that way.

[Cleita]

20. Apparently, they used excessive force and the thief died.

Somebody's life, even a scumbag's, is not worth the same as two DVD players. I hope his family sues Walmart for wrongful death. These Black Friday events are as depraved as Roman circuses.

When I worked at Sears' years ago, I never called security on shoplifters until after the fact. Our security people were really mean and sadistic. I figured Sears' could afford a little loss on their overpriced, junky crap.