Shoplifting, Larceny, Robbery, Theft falsely accused of shoplifting by a "citizen"

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SmartyPants

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i am so glad i found this website. after the experience i had yesterday, i am full of questions as to how the situation was handled and whether or not i should take any action.

i get my prescriptions at a local hospital apothecary: our insurance makes this a desireable thing to do as it costs much less per prescription there than in a drug store, etc. i am , unfortunately, in there quite often as i have many prescriptions and chronic health conditions. every now and then, when i am told it will be a wait of close to an hour for the script to be filled, and i don't have a book with me, i will go to the gift shop to browse. that is what i decided to do yesterday. i had some specific people in my mind to try to find little "feel better " gifts for and i knew i had at least 45 minutes to kill, so i took my time looking at a good number of items and actually READING greeting cards!

i was text messaging with both of my children at the time too, so occasionally i would stop, step to the side of the aisle, and do my texting. my son lives in maryland and is having the same employment nightmare the rest of the nation is having and is really struggling, so we were "talking"; my daughter is in college in pittsburgh and has a badly broken heart...so WE were "talking"......as i said, i touched a LOT of items, carrying some with me for a length of time, then changing my mind and returning them.

well, it seems that a "citizen", according to the security guards, was eating lunch in the cafeteria next door, which is separated from the gift shop by a wall of windows. i am very familiar with this set up because i am in the hospital, the gift shop, the cafeteria, many times each month. i recalled seeing a woman sitting facing the windowed wall, thinking to myself "what an odd way to be sitting while eating lunch in there", then deciding that maybe it was a better view because she could at least look at the stuffed animals instead of other people chewing!

she is the "citizen" who decided that i was putting things into my purse....and she "decided" this based on the fact that i was in the store for "a very long time". well pardon me, i didn't know there was a time limit!!!

i DID buy some items, spending about fifteen dollars. i had a nice chat with the lady at the register and i left. i went to the cafeteria next door to get some yogurt for lunch before returnign to the apothecary for my prescription.

i came out of the cafeteria and as i was walking up the hallway to the main hallway i saw the woman from the gift shop register peering down the hallway towards me....she did NOT look happy; i smiled and waved because we had JUST been chatting, but she did NOT smile back.

i walked downstairs to the ground level and was met, to my shock , by four security guards. they were staring right at me and talking among themselves, right in front of the entrance to the apothecary, so i just kept walking to go in there. but i was stopped and told to "stand right there".....NO ONE would tell me what was going on. i definitely was in a state of shock as i sat there trying to think of why this might be happening. the thoughts that went through my head were frightening.....i was thinking maybe i looked like some murder suspect and someone thought they had recognized me.....then i was afraid that it was going to be about my husband: he is a physician, he works for the hospital, and he is in the ER more often than he would care to be! every now and then, when some family member goes berserk against a doctor while in there, mostly out of fear and/or grief, my husband will tell me about it and we discuss our concerns about how ANYTHING can happen in the ER....a disgruntled family member could harm a doctor and no one would be able to predict or control it until it was too late. so, THAT thought was going through my head, irrationally obviously, because how would they know who i was and that i was int he hospital.??? like i said, it was a stressful shocking situation as far as i was concerned.

finally the head of security came back and took me into his inner sanctum....he very politely said that he was not accusing me of stealing but that the "citizen" who was watching me, the entire time i was in there, which is even stranger than someone taking 45 minutes to peruse a store!, said she "had a feeling" i had stolen something. it turns out that her concern was based on teh fact that i was 'touching the earrings' for "a long time"......okaaaaaaay.

so i was asked to take off my jacket, the short jacket under it, i had to turn them inside out to prove that there were no inside pockets, i had to dump out my overflowing , embarrasing purse, and two guards pawed through everything....then they asked for my license "to make a copy of it'. again, i was a woman in shock.....i didn't even respond except to hand them the license. it occurred to me afterwards that ofcourse, they were checking me out to see if i "have a record"; i dont' even have a parking ticket.

they gave me a consolation prize of a parking validation ticket. wasn't that just SO nice.??? i then had to go into the apothecary to get my prescription....everyone in there knows me...as i said, i am in there quite often. they all wanted to know what had happened. so i told them. every one of them was shocked too, that something like that could happen.

my guess is that the "citizen" who was in the cafeteria is employed by the hospital through security. it has to be. what she saw was a woman who had 45 minutes on her hands and lots of thoughts in her head about what little gift to buy her son, her daughter and her sister. end of story.

i spent $15 in the store by the way.

the search produced NOTHING because there was nothing to produce.

what bothers me the most is how they initially handled the situation, humiliating me in front of everyone in the hallways, in the apothecary where i do lots of business, in the place that employs my husband.....making me sit there and wait while they "got their information together", not even telling me what it was about.......i guess they are lucky that i am such a weenie and i immediately just shut down and SAT down....i almost fainted i was so upset. no apology from them either.....just a short lecture about how the "citizen" was doing the right thing by reporting what she THOUGHT was a crime.....that more people should do what she did, that they had no choice but to investigate. just to get out of there at that point, so i could faint at my own discretion, i agreed.....why ofcourse, ms. citizen of the world did the right thing, sure, ofcourse. bully for her.

then i started to get angry, after i left. i dont' react when i'm in the middle of a conflict....i have to process what has happened and then i respond, internally.

so am i just stuck with my anger and residual fear from the situation or should i go back to the security department and tell them i think the way they handled it SUCKED? or do i have "legal rights' here that were in some way violated. i ask because i truly do not know.

and i'd love to know why "the citizen" decided i was so interesting that she sat in the cafeteria for 45 minutes to watch me?

thank you for your advice.
 
THANK YOU jacksgal

....thank you for taking the time to read my monologue and responding. would you be able to shed some light on your response, why you stated that you think the security guards acted "unwisely"?:confused: i agree that they responded lawfully, doing their job, but........something about the experience just doesn't feel "right"....like the whole first part of it, where i was APPREHENDED!!!:eek:as i was walking into the apothecary to get my prescription.....i mean really, dont' they have any manners? and if you're "a suspect" does that mean you don't get treated with any basic decency?, that they get to carry out their MISSION:D in front of a hallway full of people and the entire apothecary staff? sheeeesh....:no: anyway....."unwisely"? hmmmmmm? maybe just a few more words on that????
 
SmartyPants,
You are right, it sucks that this happened. I think your best option is to learn from it, and hope it never happens again.
If you know you didn't take anything, the first question should have been "Did this citizen witness me taking something? If not, let me go or call the police." The truth is you agreed to the search, and everything they did.
If it were me, I would just file a complaint at that hospital regarding the conduct of their security officers. If nothing else, it could help prevent another innocent person from feeling so intimidated in the future.
Brian
 
Your answer woud best come from someone with more of a background in retail security or Law Enforcement. You can contact me and I can put you in touch with such an expert or you can wait for a reply here as we have at least one Law Enforcement Officer here

pilars_plaything@yahoo.com
 
i am so grateful for the replies, thank you very much. and i agree: i was totally intimidated. interestingly what the head of the security department said to me was "we can take care of this easily if you will cooperate with us, or we can call the police." i really believe they took full advantage of my obvious intimidation ....they implied that they could look at their surveillance tapes to see what was on there or i could tell them whether or not i took something. i simply said i did not take anything....they got reaaaaaallll "gentle" and said something like oh now nobody is accusing you of anything, we are just doing our jobs, following up on a suspicion that the CITIZEN had......if i could go back and do it all over again, i would do what is suggested...just say nope, go ahead, call the police....but at the time, man , that didn't seem like an option!!!!! i was in the gift shop a looong time, yes; i picked stuff up, i put it down, picked other stuff up.....i was actually have a great time really taking my time because i HAD the time! but the way it felt was that i had to prove to these guys that i was innocent.....wow. now i feel kind of stupid. oh well. i guess it's all in how well you do under stress like that....i turn into an eight year old! i mean i was sitting there on the bench, waiting for three of the guards to return from "information gathering" and i actually took out my license! like i had been pulled over by a state trooper! i didn't know what to do...................never been in such a situation.....thank you jacksgal, i will email you. again, many thanks for taking the time to respond.
 
It looks as if the staff acted lawfully and reasonably. As suggested, you can send a letter to the hospital administration, but it appears that no one acted improperly.

The options available to you might vary depending on state law as some states limit the actions private persons can take to detain, search, and/or arrest possible shoplifters.

- Carl
 
I haven't read the whole thing, I'm sorry, I haven't time yet. But, I read Apothacary. The rings a bell with me like "chemist."

What is the geographic location of the event?
 
geographic location was the apothecary in a local hospital, Rochester, NY...where my husband and i have our prescriptions filled. our insurance provides us with a nice discount on the price we pay elsewhere to have them filled. it's just part of the hospital.
 
another thought i am having on this experience is.....why was i asked to hand over my license so "a copy of it could be made"? is that "standard procedure"? i get it that they were checking me out, to see if i have a criminal record, but did they really make a copy of my license? does that mean that they think i did something and now the gift shop gets to have a copy of my license so they can look for me if i come back in (which i will never do again...)? this is just so unnerving....
 
hi all. just wanted to followup for those who have read this thread. i decided to send an email to the security department at the hospital to ask why they needed to make a copy of my license. i had a very kind, considerate response.....and now i feel bad for the guard because he thinks i am questioning how he handled the situation. how weird! i have unfortunately come to realize that what has been inspired in ME from this event is my post traumatic stress disorder symptoms from when i was a rape victim. i won't go into the aspects of this experience that set all that off, but let me tell you this: it doesn't matter how many years pass: a trauma like rape at gunpoint by a stranger who was, and you instinctively knew it, following you through a store (sound familiar yet?), never leaves your emotional system. it can all be triggered again, you can be re-traumatized. certainly the security guard could not have known this would happen to me, heck, I DIDN"T KNOW it was the reason i was so stressed out by the experience, until i had these past few days to think about it. the man who raped me was african american: the piece of the shoplifting accusation that still puzzles me is the african american woman who seemed to just drop from the ceiling when i was leaving the cafeteria with my yogurt: that was AFTER i was shopping in the gift shop....i went in to get the yogurt before going back down to retrieve my prescription. i opened the cafeteria door and turned to see if anyone was coming out also and needed me to hold the door and WHAM!, out of NOWHERE, this woman was literally on top of me; we were nose to nose; i was the one who said "oh, sorry" and she mumbled something and took off down the hall.....i dont' doubt at all that she was the one who "turned me in"...LOL....(i am TRYING to laugh...) so there you have it: the beginning of the retraumatization.....that's really all it took....so i think i'll stop contacting the poor security guard...lol....this is MY unfortunate bit to deal with, and i will, i'll be okay.
it just really stinks that it happened in the first place. thanks for listening/reading.....
 
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