Man arrested for trying to report suspected crime

By Carlos Miller
Photography Is Not a Crime

John Nix pulled out his cell phone after spotting what he thought was a gang of thugs mugging a man in the parking lot of a North Carolina shopping mall last week.

The former city council candidate ended up in jail after the men who were in street clothes turned out to be cops arresting a suspected shoplifter.

They thought he was taking their picture.

Walmart receipt clash ends in injury

By Corey Friedman

A Pennsylvania woman says her fingernail was torn off in a heated confrontation with a Walmart greeter who tried to stop her from leaving the store after she declined to show her receipt at the exit.

Susan C. Eagle was pushing a shopping cart filled with merchandise she bought at the Walmart Supercenter in Easton, Pa. March 14 when a greeter said, “I need to see your receipt.” Eagle told the woman that the receipt had been taped to the Vizio television box in her cart and continued toward the exit. The greeter repeated her demand, then grabbed Eagle and twisted her arm to prevent her from leaving, according to Eagle’s account of the altercation.

“She then grabs me by the arm and twists me, causing my finger to get caught in the shopping cart and ripping off my fingernail down to the nail bed,” Eagle wrote in an e-mail to IndeRegister.

Under Pennsylvania Statute 3929, merchants can detain someone on suspicion of shoplifting only when they have probable cause to believe a theft has occurred. Refusing to participate in a voluntary search does not provide probable cause, and store employees cannot physically restrain a customer simply because he or she chooses not to submit to a receipt check.

Eagle said she told the greeter to let her go, and the woman replied, “I’m not touching you” while maintaining her grip on the  shocked shopper’s arm.

Police brutality, false arrest at Wal-Mart

By Corey Friedman

Wal-Mart surveillance video will show an Illinois man violently wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by a store security guard after he refused to hand over his receipt for a door search.

Michael J. Phelan, a town alderman from Berwyn, Ill., was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for allegedly scuffling with an off-duty Chicago police officer who was working as a private security guard in the Forest Park, Ill. Wal-Mart Supercenter on July 27. The guard, Louis Jones, claims Phelan refused to show his receipt and resisted his attempt to handcuff him.

Phelan told IndieRegister.com that he showed Jones his receipt but refused to hand it to him. He is contesting the disorderly conduct charge and said Wal-Mart has caused his court appearance to be delayed because it has failed to turn over store surveillance tapes in a timely manner.

By their very nature, retail receipt checks are voluntary. Store employees can ask to see a shopper’s receipt or look through his purchases, but customers can decline to be searched.

Under state shoplifting laws, stores cannot detain you unless they have probable cause or reasonable suspicion — depending on your state — to believe you’ve committed a crime. Both are established legal standards that require some sort of evidence.

Police ignore law on receipt checks

By Corey Friedman

It’s hardly asking too much of law enforcement officers to understand and obey the laws they’re sworn to enforce. So, it’s with more than a little frustration and outrage that I report two incidents where police ignored the law and ordered shoppers to show their receipts before allowing them to leave Walmart stores.

Widespread and increasingly controversial, the practice of store employees checking customers’ receipts post-purchase is legal only if it’s voluntary. Merchants cannot detain someone suspected of shoplifting without meeting the necessarily high legal burden of probable cause or reasonable suspicion (depending on your state). Some customers find receipt checks and bag searches offensive and routinely decline the inspections.

On Saturday, a woman bought a microwave from Walmart Supercenter 605 in Savannah, Ga. and was prevented from leaving after she politely refused a store greeter’s request to check her receipt. Managers were summoned, and she asked repeatedly if she was suspected of shoplifting. They replied she wasn’t, but insisted that they see her receipt, as it’s store policy to verify all unbagged purchases.

The woman, who identified herself as Hayden on the Standuptowalmart.com message board, called police, informed them she was being detained illegally and asked for charges to be filed against the assistant managers who prevented her from leaving.

In direct defiance of Georgia law, police allegedly took the store’s side.

Receipt check causes scuffle, arrest

By Corey Friedman

A city alderman from Berwyn, Ill. was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after a scuffle with Walmart security guards who tried to detain him for refusing to show his receipt at the door, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Stores can request to see customers’ receipts or inspect their bags, but the checks are voluntary — the instant money changes hands, merchandise becomes the buyer’s personal property. Employees and security guards cannot detain someone simply for refusing to show his or her receipt.

Depending on your state of residence, merchants have to meet the legal standard of “probable cause” or “reasonable suspicion” before detaining someone suspected of shoplifting.

Wal-Mart: Receipt check is voluntary

By Corey Friedman

A Wal-Mart manager admitted Tuesday that employees can’t detain a customer for declining a receipt check — even when the security alarm is activated.

Johnny Wilkins, co-manager of the Wal-Mart Supercenter at 3000 E. Franklin Blvd. in Gastonia, N.C., reviewed surveillance video from last Saturday’s attempted illegal detention. A greeter stood in front of my shopping cart to prevent me from leaving the store and at least four employees followed me to my car, surrounded me and harassed me for refusing to show my receipt.

“I’m shocked to see that she [the greeter] grabbed your shopping cart in that manner,” Wilkins told me after watching video of the incident.

About an hour after being illegally prevented from leaving the store, I phoned Wal-Mart and spoke to Tina, an assistant manager. She apologized profusely and said employees are not permitted to physically restrain customers for saying “No, thanks” to the receipt checker.

Receipt check implies we’re crooks

By Corey Friedman

We’ve wandered the vast aisles forlornly, darting from frozen foods to health and beauty to electronics to cleaning supplies. Overhead, rows of fluorescent lights bathe the hulking superstore in a pale yellow glow.

We wait in human gridlock for our turn at the cash register, advancing inch by interminable inch. The cashier scans our purchases, fills our shopping bags and takes our money. The transaction finally over, we push our carts to the electric exit doors. The crystalline sky appears just ahead. At long last, sweet freedom!

Then, the store greeter’s sharp voice jolts us back to the maze of vinyl tile and white shelves.

“Can I see your receipt?”

Most of us obligingly dig the long strip of paper from our pockets and stand sheepishly while the man or woman scrutinizes the record of a purchase that happened less than a minute ago. What few of us fully realize is the indignity of this all-too-common practice.

We were just accused of stealing.