srothstein wrote:You are under no obligation to comply with the security officer or store clerks, ever. BUT, and it is important, if the alarm goes off, they do have a legal right to detain you and may use force to do so.
I point to Code of Criminal procedure Article 18.16 on preventing the consequences of a theft. Note that it says there must be reasonable ground to believe the property is stolen. I feel the courts would uphold the store alarm going off as you attempt to exit as reasonable grounds.
And in the Penal Code, Chapter 9 allows force for an arrest by a citizen, as long as the arrest is lawful.
The bright side is that it is not illegal to resist the arrest by a citizen, and that most stores have policies against detaining people for just the sound of the alarm going off. I do not expect anyone to have any problem when they refuse to stop for the clerk or security officer, but it may be legal for them to stop you with force if you do.
And obviously, IANAL and this is just my interpretation of the law. You may feel free to disagree with how I read these articles, but I recommend against testing your disagreement in court (never be the test case).
Interesting points which could spawn its own thread. I believe for a citizen to conduct a “citizens� arrest one must witness a felony. That being said, In order for a store employee to be justified in detaining someone, let alone using force, the employee would need to be witness (via CC t.v. or something) to the suspect shoplifting $1500 or more in merchandise (anything less is a misdemeanor). Something to ponder, if one shoplifts $100 in merchandise and an employee attempts to detain you and uses force to do so, the force would then be unlawful…would one then be able to sue or use force in return to stop the unlawful force. My first instinct is no, because you are in the commission of a crime.
Now, look at walking through the detector and it sounds even though you have not stolen anything. If one had not stolen anything then there can not be any witnesses to a felony and therefore any detention or force would not be justified. In this situation, if an employee attempted to use unlawful force to detain you, would you be justified in using force to avoid said unlawful detention or unlawful force and/or could one file a law suite under tort law?
My scenario’s were limited to employees, does the answer change if the employee is a security guard who sole purpose is theft detection and prevention? Do security guards have any more leeway when it comes to detaining suspected shoplifters?
I have had detectors sound, always because of a missed security tag. If I had just gone through the register and paid for stuff I would not stop, but out of courteously if had had not purchased anything and the detectors sounded (has never happened to me) I would most likely stop until someone said it was ok…just to avoid any issues.
