Kind of a Catch-22 for the store. Let her walk out with the kid only to find she was the one stealing the baby, or have this happen. On the other hand, if someone actually was stealing a child, would they really go through the checkout line? I guess $9/hr doesn’t buy a lot of common sense.
Note, this is from a MySpace page which is blocked by some nanny programs.
I get to the check out and start feeling quite uneasy because the cashier is staring at Ava the whole time as she is scanning my items. In fact several times she had to scan them more than once because she was so preoccupied with Ava. She then excuses herself before giving me my total and uses the phone at her register to ask for assistance and gives some “code”.
Here’s where I might start flipping out!
The next thing I know a security guard is asking me to hand him Ava. Evidentally someone in the store had their baby in a cart and someone rolled the cart away. Moron parent if you ask me if someone can just roll your child away from you and now you’ve misplaced your baby… but…
[…]
They are trying to tell me that Ava is not my child. She started fussing so I began taking her out of the seat. The whole time this security guard is asking me to “give him the baby”. FUCK YOU! There was no way I was handing her over! I tried to walk away, leaving her car seat, the diaper bag, even my wallet…they blocked me!
Like to see a follow up…
So the Walmart employee didn’t handle this well, I can think of several better ways to hold this mom in the store for a few minutes while the situation evolves, without freaking her out. Today maybe she should yell at him, mail a formal complaint to Bentonville, or whatever.
But the mother is an immature whining baby herself, per her Myspace posts. No doubt she’d be threatening to sue if she’s lost her kid and they didn’t do the (almost) same thing to someone else. She needs to grow up and start thinking about the welfare of others, too.
damned if you do, damned if you dont
“Kind of a Catch-22 for the store. Let her walk out with the kid only to find she was the one stealing the baby, or have this happen. “
3. “damned if you do, damned if you dont”
God, how hard is it to think before mashing on your keyboard. Taking the baby was not the only option, and in fact it was the worst option under the circumstances.
Instead of asking the mother to hand over her baby, which was fricken stupid, he could have politely told the lady there was a baby missing in the story and could she please remain in the store until it’s sorted out. There was absolutely no reason and he had absolutely no authority to take that baby.
If it had happened to me I would have beat the motherfucker to the ground and my defense would have been his attempted kidnapping. Which is exactly what it was.
Weird! Sounds like a bit of reason on both sides would have been in order. On one hand, like most parents, I’d slit the security gaurd’s throat before I’d hand over my baby, on the other hand, would it have been that difficult to just say call police, I’ll stay here with the child, and we can sort this all out.
I’m not about to say that a security guard at Wal-Mart couldn’t have screwed up but the rant of a borderline litterate on MySpace could be an example of taking “hearing only one side of the story” to a whole new level.
6. “but the rant of a borderline litterate on MySpace could be an example of taking “hearing only one side of the story” to a whole new level.”
What other side to the story? Does Wal-Mart have the right to take kids from parents?! No. Did she have any obligation to turn her kid over? Nope. Every single Wal-Mart employee involved with this fiasco should be charged with kidnapping. I hope the local prosecutor has some balls to stand up to Wal-Mart.
use of deadly force is now authorized
no problem here, please move along…
what would King Solomon do?
#4, J-F,
Good post, I agree.
#7, J-F,
This is where we disagree, slightly. Wal-Mart has an obligation to protect its patrons, including the missing child. To prevent them from leaving is not such an inconvenience as to warrant “kidnapping” charges. Although, as you pointed out in #4, the security guard should have told her there was a missing child and asked for her patience. Politely. The police should have been called at once too.
I might add, her leaving everything at the counter, including her wallet and the child’s diaper bag, would leave most people to view her with suspicion. That would not be the act of a reasonable person.
The only thing scarier than the employees at Wal*Mart is the customers…
9. “To prevent them from leaving is not such an inconvenience as to warrant “kidnapping” charges.”
Attempting to take a child without any legal authority to do so is attempted kidnapping. Stopping a customer from leaving without any legal authority is kidnapping.
I gave my highly reasonable solution and you agreed with it. So I don’t understand why you’re defending the employee’s illegal actions.
“That would not be the act of a reasonable person.”
Then you don’t have kids. when you have kids they are worth more than your purse and anything in it. And I see it the other way. If she really was a criminal, why would she leave her purse and ID?! That makes no sense.
So to the mother of the actual missing child you say what, “Sorry, you’re SOL, we can’t stop women with children”.
They had no way of knowing whether this child was the missing one or not. Should they do nothing?
Sure, the security guard should have been more understanding, and probably smarter. The child should remain in the woman’s custody until such time as the police sort it out. However, she shouldn’t have been allowed to leave with the child if there was some doubt as to the true identity of the child and it’s parents. Otherwise, if a child really is kidnapped, who is to stop them? After they are in their car in the parking lot…when the police (who have the authority) get there 15 minutes later covered in doughnut icing? Once they are in the car, the odds of safely retrieving that child have gone down tremendously.
It was fully reasonable for this guard to doubt the validity of the customers’ claim of ownership of the child. As the parent of three kids, I wouldn’t allow the guard to take my child out of my presence either. However, I would be happy to wait until the cops got there to straighten the mess out once I knew there was a missing child in the store. Unlike the mother in this story, I can put myself in the mother of the missing child’s position. I can only imagine how I would feel if my child were missing…and I would be happy to go the extra mile so that the police can eliminate me as a suspect and can move on following valid leads.
And I see it the other way. If she really was a criminal, why would she leave her purse and ID?! That makes no sense.
You have more faith in the average criminals intelligence than I do.
It seems that Walmart mis-handled the situation.
A child is reported missing in the store;
Lock down the store so that there is only one exit and have that exit guarded, allow people to leave the store as they wish but stop anyone with a baby to check them out.
Make an announcement over the PA system describing the situation and asking for help from the customers.
Sure a lot of people might be pissed and inconvenienced, but there is a good chance that if someone kidnapped a baby that they would abandon the effort.
The dumb ass woman should have called 911 immediately and reported an attempted kidnapping because that is what it is when someone tries to take a child away from you.
I’m afraid that if I was in her position I probably would have ended up charged with assault and battery on the the security guard.
#12
We know the Walmart employees actions were fully unreasonable because once the manager got involved, they gave her all the stuff she was gonna buy for free in hope of avoiding the lawsuit.
#14
That’s not necessarily true. When I was a supervisor in a casino, we’d give people checks on the dice game just to shut them up. Some guy claims he had a bet when he didn’t, we’d give him the benefit of the doubt, just to shut him and and get the game going again. Like a dice game, the manager’s performance is judged by the profit dollar ammount that goes through the checkout lines while he is there. At some point her holding up the line is costing him more than the profit margin on her purchases.
Now, I’m not saying that’s exactly why he made that decision. But it could be that just as well as the hope of avoiding a lawsuit. Beyond that, him trying to avoid a lawsuit does not necessarily mean that the actions were unjustified. Plenty of companies will settle out of court lawsuits just to make them go away…whether they are guilty or not. It is worth 100 bucks worth of jujubes and diapers just to lower the risk of lawyers fees.
Calin – Did the mother at the checkstand know that some other child was missing? I see no indication of that. So far as I can see, some goon just walked up and demanded she hand the kid over.
That’s not going to fly too good.
Drama queen. The manager was just putting some stfu on her. I bet she howls all the way to a free case of pringles.
ok I hate this story for one reason, IT GOT ME TO GO TO THAT CESSPOOL KNOWN AS MYSPACE. Ok that aside this is horrible but I would have said something like, “No I will not give you my kid, however if you think I kidnapped her I will pick her up and go with you to see a manager” it would really be no big deal for me, after all the only thing to lose is their jobs. Then rather then crying I’m laughing my ass off the whole way.
I have to agree with the drama queen mom on this. If a clerk called a guard who showed up to take my baby away, you wouldn’t get much of a reasonable response out of me either. The fault is completely Walmarts.
Was this in the news anywhere? I would like to know more. Did they eventually find the kid in the shirt rack where he had rolled or what?
Asci is right… Wal Mart fucked up.
And despite all of of you guys second guessing this mother with comments about how she could have handled it… I’d suggest you consider that you don’t walk in her shoes.
She’s buying commodities at a Wal mart when suddenly some McGuards are demanding her baby. This isn’t the sort of thing one expects at a Wal Mart and a panic reaction, while unproductive, is totally understandable…
However… This is a MySpace post… Is there actually a news story? If its true, I think Wal Mart should put this baby through college. But how do we know it is true?
Why is it that Wal-Mart fucked up rather than one employee at Wal-Mart fucked up? The manager acted appropriately. This was just some rent-a-cop dickhead on a power trip.
What kills me is that I had a run in like this with a cop. The cop gives me tickets for speeding and an expired inspection sticker and asks me for my phone number. I ask why he needs it and the asshole arrests me and puts me in cuffs so tightly it leaves red streaks on my wrists for 24 hours. A few hours later, I am sent before a judge, who is a client of mine, in shackles and then released.
When I told others about this, every person (save for a friend of mine who is a cop) says and I quote, “what did you do wrong?”.
A short time later, a woman was suing for false arrest in a case that went to the Supreme Court. Her crime was not having her seatbelt buckled and even though she had two kids with her, the cop thought it best to arrest her and put her in jail. The Supremes ruled the police had the right to arrest her and that she could not sue. To make it clear then, it is perfectly legal in some states to throw your butt in jail for even the most minor of misdemeanors.
The cop in question got fired probably because I am a white professional and was going to make the PD look like bozos. He was fired from another small town PD before after running his squad car into the PD building when he got upset. It is highly likely this dickhead is probably working as a rent-a-cop right now.
So if you have a power crazed dickhead working at Walmart and he does a dickheaded thing, it is Walmart’s fault. If he is working as a cop, what he did to you is your fault. But in our current pass-the-buck society, it is never, ever his fault.
Why is she shopping at Walmart anyway? Morally bankrupt plague on this country….
#21 – Why is it that Wal-Mart fucked up rather than one employee at Wal-Mart fucked up?
For the same reason that when my employee failed to satisfy a customer’s complaint at my store, I apologized.
For the same reason that Harry S. Truman had a plaque on his desk that read, “The Buck Stops Here.”
I don’t understand what that very long (albeit interesting) story was all about, but when that cop arrested you, it was the City of Whatever City It Is that fucked up.
22.
Wal-mart took the high road to make a buck.
Look at the model.
HOW to compete against the others…
The others buy from Distributors, Wally’s buys DIRECT and even makes the manufactures COMPETE to make products for SALE in wally’s.
As to employees…HOw do you compete?
The others cut hours so they dont need to pay benefits.
Wally’s hires 2 times as many persons, and gives everyone hours, around what is need to NOT pay benefits.
Either way, its the same practice, except the FIRST one, cuts so close there isnt ANYONE left in the store 1/2 the time to give assistance.
The point of my story is that when a government servant screws up, the Supreme Court ruled they can’t be sued. When a Wal-mart employee screws up, it is Wal-Mart’s fault.
OFTLO, maybe you think the city is to blame, but you missed the point. What this cop did to me was ruled legal by the Supreme Court. Even though the Supreme Court ruled that the cop in that case showed extremely poor judgement, the woman arrested couldn’t sue the city. The city therefore could not be held to liable for what that cop did to me.
Let me put it another way. The person who first sued a drug company over Redux got $20 million, and she suffered no harm. One set of men who were wrongly jailed for rape or other crimes and later released once DNA cleared them got $250,000 apiece. The people who covered up the harm Redux did were fired. Have any of the prosecutors or judges who wrongly convicted and sentenced these people been canned or lost their law license? Hell no. They are almost never held accountable for their behavior.
A cop shows an error in judgment while working for the police, and the city gets away with it. That same cop, working as Security for Wal-Mart, makes an equal error in judgment and it is Wal-Mart’s fault. Holding Wal-Mart to be held to a higher standard for a similar wrong than our government is fucked up, and it is an example of big government liberalism.
#25 – I agree with you in most regards. I only meant to state that why I hold Wal Mart responsible is the same principal by which I apologize for my employees mistake and the same principal that inspired the motto by which Truman lived.
I’ll say too, despite not really knowing the actual details of the case you mention, I don’t agree with the Court’s ruling as I understand it. But also, as I understand it, the court did not say the city wasn’t responsible if a cop makes a mistake, but rather that this was a particular mistake that a citizen cannot sue over.
Now, in and of itself, that irks me because I believe every citizen should have unquestioned recourse to the law to settle disputes, even if the inevitable conclusion of that recourse will be a loss. I have a right to be heard, and I believe that if the Court says no, that I still have the right, it’s just that the right is being denied.
I make this distinction because its important to define rights. I believe that I have an absolute right to privacy in my home and on my person. Just because my rights to privacy are being slowly eroded by our government doesn’t mean they don’t exist, just that they are being denied.
But let’s point out that no one is responsible yet, because all we are talking about is some blog entry. I still am not sure that the event really happened.
Oh goodie, more Wal-Mart bashing.
Had the ‘guard’ actually taken the baby, there would be a legit news story and a lawsuit stemming from the incident. There is neither. What we do when there is a Code Adam (missing child) is lock the exit doors, and try to keep everyone, or usually just people with children, inside the store until it’s resolved.
God help her if this ever happens to her child, and someone just strolls right out of the store with it because of the case of overreactive, attention whoring, blog writing ninnies.
“damned if you do, damned if you dont ” – TOTAL CRAP!
All they had to do was explain the situation and any parent would have waiting for the distraught mother… if not actually try and help themselves. But no.. they have to come over all Martial LAW!
I’m suprised she wasn’t tasered!
#28 – Congress hasn’t approved the use of tasers by Wal Mart McGuards. That bill will likely pass the house next week.
#25, jz,
The Supremes ruled that a citizen may not sue the police just because they were arrested with cause. Even though the case that caused the ruling showed poor judgment by the officer, he is allowed to arrest her because she is being charged with a crime. If she can show the charge is bogus and merely an illusion to effect the arrest, then yes, she may sue because the arrest has no standing in law. In all other respects though, the police are protected from civil action if what they did was in the furtherance of their job.
In the Wal-Mart example, the security guard apparently did not attempt to remove the child from the mother. Therefore no crime has been committed. If the guard has REASONABLE grounds to believe a crime has been committed he may detain the suspect. Guess what. You can too. If the suspect is armed or may potentially have means to commit another crime, then the guard (and you) may disarm the suspect. That is nothing new or revolutionary.
For example, security guards routinely stop suspected shoplifters. If you catch someone breaking into your car or vandalizing your property, you may apprehend them and hold them for the police. AND you may do it with impunity provided you do not use more force than is required to detain the person or prevent that person from doing more harm.
As I pointed out before, the security guard had reasonable grounds to detain the mother. He did not touch her nor was she injured in any way. If she attempted to leave by physical means then she could have been arrested by the security guard and SHE could have been arrested for assault. The inconvenience she was put through was the same as if she had been stopped by a police roadblock searching for a missing child. This is not a case of Security Guard power tripping.
Now, what if the mother HAD kidnapped the child and she tried to flee right in front of you? Would you try to prevent her escape or would you aid her getaway by stopping the security guard from doing his job?