AlphaBeta wrote:Now in reference to baldeagle: I know that our constitutional rights are applied to the government and you as a private citizen are protected from the government but we have the government in place to protect the common freedoms we are assured from even the private citizen when it comes to public places that are open to the public. There is also the need to protect society from the private citizen that chooses to remove your freedoms without that legal protection to allow you to do that.
I agree with all of this and would take it further. In some instances a citizen has a right to use their own force the prevent the removal of their freedoms or life.
AlphaBeta wrote:I do not disagree with the power to kick someone out of your home if they do something wrong or your private property. Nor do I feel you should be forced to allow me to say whatever I want about you or use your private property to push a point you don't agree with. I feel you should have that say on your own private area. However the question here becomes where does your power end and my freedoms begin. If by using the logic you offer I can stop everyone from leaving my store that doesn't agree that cupcakes are amazing and that all cats should be president. Right? My property not yours and you don't give up your freedoms just because you came in.
The point is the store owner has the right to expel you from his property if your speech offends him, not prevent you from leaving.
AlphaBeta wrote:The issue is that *I* see a potential for abuse and I see where the law grants that protection to detain on a flimsy table that could blanket protect everyone. By the logic stated here any ACT that makes the store believe you have done something stole could be used to detain you. Let's take it a step further what happens when you set the alarm off and the person isn't satisfied that you didn't steal anything until you walk back into an office and take your pants off dumping them, now your underwear because I believe you may have stashed it there in between your legs. Nope nothing? Ok you hid it under your shirt so take that off. Now how do you feel? Humiliated? Like a criminal? Oh you didn't have anything? I never saw you take anything but that anti-theft system we have said you did. Must have been a mistake sorry have a nice day. They are allowed by the way it's allowed your argument is to allow that activity to be allowed because he is attempting to investigate the ownership of property. All of that because you set off an alarm in a store because someone forgot to deactivate a tag.
In the scenario you describe the store owner would have exceeded his legal authority. In that situation I would protest and demand that police officers be present, but I'm not going to resist with force. If they used force to undress me and search me, I would smile and say, you go ahead, but i'll see you in court and you won't like the results. IOW, I don't think it's a situation that compels me to use deadly force to defend myself.
AlphaBeta wrote:Did this happen to me? Nope. Has it happened yup ask Cockrell it happened. Did the guy have the right to detain me because I stole something? I don't think so when you watch me walk from a register and out a door with a delay that could have been set off by someone else or anything else but assuming I did set it off could have been one of those accidents cashier deactivated the tag.
And therein lies the problem. He DOES have the right to detain you, and whether or not you like it isn't relevant. If you disagree that he should have that right then you should lobby your legislature to change the law.
AlphaBeta wrote:Could I have just shown the guy what was in my bag? Yes. I didn't want to I had things to do people to see and the law gives me the authority to walk freely over this darn state as long as I don't do anything illegal.
That's incorrect. The law doesn't give you the authority to exercise your freedom. God does. But police officers and certain other people have the legal authority to detain you at any time for reasonable suspicion. In the specific incident that you cite, reasonable suspicion would be articulated by the SO as follows. When the alarm went off I asked him to stop. He refused and kept walking. When I demanded to see what was in his bag he threatened me. I feared for my life so I used my pepper spray to prevent him from leaving or harming me.
AlphaBeta wrote:Now the question is not can they detain me the question is was that alarm enough to warrant a resonable belief I stole something from that store? Majority here say yes it was. While I may disagree for reasons I have said many times and the two cases discussing this area from my research that the employees needed more than the anti-theft device. Carr supports that it was part of the process but I am left wondering as stated above the white unmarked bag played a role in this. The court mentions the bag multiple times in the review of lawful detainment.
You handed him reasonable suspicion by your behavior. The alarm was only the trigger.
AlphaBeta wrote:It is also interesting that the bill didn't get passed with this in it:
http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/77 ... 00966S.doc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; This would require retailers to post notice about the anti-theft device being usable as resonable belief. No different then our other signs. To me they knew it would cause problem and to me the few that wanted it knew it wasn't enough.
Without reading the bill and all the committee testimony (and floor testimony if it made it that far), I really couldn't form an opinion about this.
AlphaBeta wrote:As I said before PD is investigating the right to detain. If I get the police report and see something that gives rise to support one way or the other in that I will let everyone know. LEO did not judge one way or the other but citied it could go either way. No different than of the 5 attorneys I talked to three of them said its worth taking to court with 1 saying they don't handle that area and the other saying it was something she wanted to look into more.
If you're going to hire a lawyer, I would hire the last one. The first three were happy to take your money without investigating. She wasn't. That tells me she isn't prepared to give you legal advice without knowing the details of the case.