Best Not Buy
John Calvin Jones
www.virtualcitizens.com
2007-02-20

http://www.virtualcitizens.com/articles/Best_Not_Buy

Certain box stores have greeters. They also have people who hang out near the exits. Sometimes these are the same people, too. While the former put on an air of concern for your well being with comments like “good afternoon” or “how can we help you?” those near the exit doors are vultures… part of the growing private security-state. That the private security-state is ubiquitous is bad enough, that it conditions civilians and police alike is dangerous.

"Can I see your receipt?" is a seemingly innocent phrase that we hear on a daily basis. Most people, well trained in the practice of ovine life, simply stop, produce a receipt, allow the $6.50/hour sub-cop to review said receipt, the screener finds satisfaction and the sheepish world still turns. But there are a number of reasons that we should not accept this pat-down, so familiar and common that it makes airport harassment seem comfy.

The Customer is Always a Liar

The implication is clear. Though many of us like to do comparison shopping always looking for that best deal or buy, we often go to the store close to home. As we leave such establishment, employees of the people who have just taken your money suspect us as a thief – lest they would not need to ask for a receipt as proof of purchase. But it is worse, if one politely declines to show said receipt, if only because one feels offended to be a suspected thief, and then gently informs the Sub-cop that one has of course purchased the item, the sub-cop assumes that the loyal customer is a liar. Now that is a pleasant thought.

The same store that wants your money, takes the default position that anyone who walks through their doors is a thief and a liar. So how do the children of corporate regulation and video surveillance react when a customer asserts their liberty and integrity by explaining:

1. any and all items they possess as they exit are their property;
2. any items previously owned by said Box Store have been legally purchased – hence transferring ownership to customer;
3. they decline to show any receipts – which after all are one’s property; and
4. have a nice day (harassing other sheeple), but please get out of my way.

Well in South Texas it goes something like this…

Sub-cop: “you cannot leave with that laptop until you show me a receipt as a proof of purchase.”

Customer with Integrity (CWI): “Sorry, I just do not feel like submitting myself to such a humiliating search that implies that you think I am a thief and a liar I already told you, I just bought this.”

Then sub-cop commits a series of intentional torts – assault, battery, and attempted theft – by trying to wrestle the just purchased lap-top from the previously loyal customer.

CWI: “Am I under arrest?”

Sub-cop: “No.”

CWI: “Then let go of my computer, quit trying to steal it from me. I am leaving.”

At this point the somewhat bewildered Sub-cop releases the computer box and follows the CWI outside taking pictures of the CWI, his car, and license plate number.

While the next set of events are fuzzy, they explain clearly that police are stupid, lazy and care nothing for the Constitution, and as the same time, the Dilberts of retail cannot think their way out of a paper bag.

Planet of the Cops

Let us review some of the basics. At this one particular store, which shall remain unidentified but where we think it is Best Not to Buy, one cannot walk out of the store with a laptop computer until after one pays for it. That is, the store staff has complete control over such items, and hand them to customers as one completes their purchase with the cashier. Further, in this particular instance there were only three cashiers, who are in close proximity to the Sub-cop guarding the exit Hence in the short-term, a Sub-cop can deal with Informed Customer by simply asking personnel, “who gave the laptop to this guy?” Better yet, because there were only three cashiers, and it happened to be that the cashier who conducted the transaction for the laptop was a classmate of our hero customer, Sub-cop could have asked each cashier directly if the laptop was purchased or stolen. But, alas, we cannot expect this kind of response to a customer who acts in ways that are legal and proper.

Instead of finding ways to be discrete and de-escalate, Sub-cop informs Manager of the suspicious activity and Manager – who cannot be bothered with talking to their own cashiers, checking receipts, looking at videotape, or contemplating logic (how many people walk out with computers, clearly visible, after such was just handed to them by our personnel? Hmm), calls the minions of General Urko.

We’re Not Lazy or Liars, Just Regular Cops

In between the time when our hero left the store where you cannot get the Best Service, and the time when minions of Urko arrived at the residence of the No Longer Loyal Customer, some employees of a Police Department went to the establishment where the legal purchase occurred and “took a report.” That is, these crack troops of the Empire did not conduct even a cursory investigation. They never bothered to ask if there were any record of a credit card purchase or a check for said laptop. The Gorillas in Navy Blue did not ask any cashiers if someone fitting the description of the Informed Citizen bought a laptop. The wannabe Border Patrol Agents (a job where the real action is, where you get to beat and arrest people who look just like you) never bothered to learn what Don’t Buy had as standard procedure by which a customer might walk out of the store with a laptop, i.e. the staff hand over the computers AFTER one pays for it. No these thugs took a report that “maybe someone stole a computer, because he said he bought it but did not show a receipt.”

We Only Enforce the Laws of Texas

So about one hour after our Fully Informed Citizen left the Don’t Buy, two armed thugs, fully authorized to shoot and kill people, but not competent enough to ask to see store videotapes or cash register receipts, came to the house of our hero. And in their thuggish style, they assumed he was both a thief and a liar… I wonder why?

How can you tell a bully? They demand, instead of ask. The first thing that the non-thinking bullies did was to tell our Fully Informed Citizen that he must show them some identification. And why not, it is their standard practice – even though such is not in concert with Texas law and clearly is barred by the U.S. Constitution.

It was a day at school for our not often trained Apes in Blue. They must have been shocked to learn that our Citizen knows what the Supreme Court held in the case of Hiibel v. Nevada (2004). It turns out that one only need show ID to police upon their request, if one is a suspect in a crime, and state law so demands. So our hero refused – and asked the Bullies if he were a criminal suspect. How did the Assassins without a Brain respond? They just threatened him with arrest – even though they admitted that he was NOT a criminal suspect, that they were only doing an investigation of a report of a possible theft.

How nice of the Apes with Guns to threaten our hero. It is not as if they need to follow any Supreme Court rulings. Why should any police officers know what the Supreme Court held anyway? And in relation to stop and frisk, stop and seize or stop and question incidents? That is asking too much. Like one captain for the Police Fraternity of the Ignorant Thugs told me, “we only enforce the laws of Texas.” He added that there are too many Supreme Court cases – we cannot know all of them. Apparently they cannot know those most basic and germane to their jobs either.

In fact, I asked the Captain of the Apes to tell me the part of the Texas code that made it a criminal penalty to refuse to show a police officer a photo ID or any type of identification. He refused – but he knew there was a law on it. I looked it up Texas has a law that criminalizes one for failing to identify one’s self to a police officer – but there are a few caveats.

Texas Penal Code § 38.02 (2006) titled: Failure to Identify, reads as follows:

(a) A person commits an offense if he intentionally refuses to give his name, residence address, or date of birth to a peace officer who has lawfully arrested the person and requested the information.

(b) A person commits an offense if he intentionally gives a false or fictitious name, residence address, or date of birth to a peace officer who has:

1. lawfully arrested the person;
2. lawfully detained the person; or
3. requested the information from a person that the peace officer has good cause to believe is a witness to a criminal offense.

So, there you have it. In Texas, if arrested, one must give their name, lest they commit a misdemeanor. Or under 38.02(b) one cannot give a false name (but can refuse to self-identify), when detained or reasonably identified as a witness to a crime. The Thugs in Blue never asserted that our hero met these criteria. Further, as they demanded that he present some sort of ID card, the police – who after all only know Texas law – were threatening to arrest the Informed Citizen for something that is NOT a crime. Wow, I bet that never happens.

When our citizen knocked the ignorant and uniformed for a loop, they got mad. Though they assured him that they were not threatening to make an arrest, they insisted they would arrest him if he did not show an identification card (I guess there is nothing wrong with cops being bullies, inventing the law, and threatening fraudulent arrests … that is their job, right?).

After our hero provided ID, needlessly, the Lazy Thugs said that they were investigating a possible theft of a laptop computer. They asked to see a receipt for the laptop that our hero purchased. And while our hero explained that no one has a duty to retain a receipt in order to avoid arrest for theft, he again demanded to know if he were a criminal suspect. At this time the Liars in Navy Blue explained that he WAS a criminal suspect.

Given that, our hero then produced a receipt and asked the Lazy Liars if they had performed a basic investigation while visiting with the simpletons from Worst Surveillance – like “asking sales clerks or cashiers if they had sold a laptop to someone who fit his description?” The Brainless Gun Holders said that they had not. Surprise, surprise, surprise…

Our hero asked the Thugs if they seen any surveillance footage noting someone stealing a laptop. The Brainless Liars announced that the store with a whole bunch of video surveillance cameras and that, in fact, specializes in the sale of high-end electronics including video cameras, does not monitor its exit. Then our hero asked what evidence the staff of Worst Surveillance Electronics had provided that gave one cause to believe that any laptop computer was missing or stolen. The Bullies said that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell personnel had not provided any evidence that a laptop was stolen

Make Your Own Report

When confronted with the obvious, that no one, who is paid by local taxpayers to do so, had conducted a rudimentary investigation, that there was no cause for the police to accost our hero, and that they did not know the basics of the law in re-questioning citizens, the Thugs were less than appreciative. For his trouble as our hero sought to lodge a criminal complaint for suffering false arrest, battery, and harassment at the hands of Worst Service, the agents of Urko and corporate power said that they could not take a report from him. Instead, he would have to call the police – but not them – and someone else would open a new investigation

The entire episode took little over an hour but revealed some basic truths that we know exist and we know that need to be changed. We have stores that monitor us all the time, yet still treat us as criminals. We have cops who cannot think past the idea that the public is the enemy, and that corporate property is privileged above all else. Too often, well over 99.9% of the time, our nation of sheeple pay little attention to the net of surveillance and the demands of obedience that we are expected to tolerate and adhere. It arrives in the name of freedom and protection of property… it is a noose that discourages us from trusting one another, asserting our dignity and liberty. It is part of a process that herds us to act like sheep in the face of physical force and authority. It is the stuff of which tyranny is made.

John Calvin Jones
www.virtualcitizens.com