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About a hour ago, my family and the TKD school my son attends were at a mall. The TKD school was doing some free marketing at a table in the mall. There were 3 instructors, 3 parents and about 6 kids.
As we were chatting and the kids were handing out flyers. A man was leaving the Coach store. He was being followed by another man. The second man was shouting for the first man to stop and not to go any further. The first man (bad guy) was walking quickly, saying for the other man not to touch him. At first glance everyone thought it was a couple of friends joking around. They went past us and then things got interesting.
The second man (head of mall security undercover) tackled the bad guy to the ground. First thing we did was kid check and corral the loose ones. Everyone was standing up to see what was taking place and also create a wall around the kids. Another uniformed security officer came upon the scene and was already call for assistance. A crowd started to gather and things were getting ugly on the ground. My ever so helpful wife, tells me to do something. I proceed to walk up and ask the uniformed security officer who the good guys was. He tells me that he is in charge of security for the mall. So I proceed to ask him, so he is your boss. The uniformed says, yes. I asked him then why in the hell are you just standing here.
I looked down towards the bad guy and told him real plain and simple, I don’t know what you have or have not done, but I can tell you that you won’t be leaving here real soon so stop fighting because it is only making matters worse. While he is distracted looking and talking to me the head of security gets a much better hold on him and is able to get to his cuffs. By this time the crowd is enraged and voicing their opinion. I explained to them that he is being detained and if he will stop fighting with the officer things will only get better. Another gentleman tells the bad guy the same things I have been telling him.
At this time the ever so useless big mouth security officer comes up and tells everyone to just leave, there is nothing to see. My thoughts are this person is an idiot. No one has come yet and helped the head of security and I am completely frustrated with the lack of backup in this place.
An older security officer comes around the corner and grabs the bad guys and puts the cuffs on him. The bad guys is refusing to sit down. I explain that they want him to sit down and that he can either sit down or they will sit him down. He still refuses and they slammed him to the floor. This is where brutality and abuse comne into play and these officers are completely frustrated with this guy. I explained to them that they need to get this out of the malls public view and behind doors. Because this is only going to cause more problems.
They move him to the back and he fights the whole way, kicking and crying. His face was busted open and he was very unhappy.
Come to find out after further discussion that this guy had stolen some credit cards and was using them fraudulently. He had already gone to Macy’s and was in Coach when Security witnessed him making another purchase and were trying to detain him for the police who had already been notified. The police were there within a few minutes and the bad guy will probably have a new roommate by morning.
I wasn’t going to say anything, it’s not my place. The stupid uniformed officer who was first to respond was about 10 seconds behind the initial tackle. He did nothing. This infuriated my wife, who apparently has a very large insurance policy on me or have alot of faith in me. I couldn’t see grabbing this guy as putting me into a good situation. I tried to explain things to the bad guy and to keep the pissed off crowd from becoming ugly. You had a white male officer tackling a young black male and slamming him to the ground, while choking him from behind. The crowd was largely black and not very understanding. This was an ugly situation and was not getting better when the second officer put the cuffs on and slammed the bad guy down. He was an older white man. Things did get a little out of hand at the end, it was pure adrenaline and aggrevation. I guess they figured he would just stop and go quietly to jail for Credit Card Fraud, yeah right.
I was fiarly certain that my wife and kids were safe. All of the adults at the table have taken KM for at least 3 years each and one is an instructor.
No need to tell me how stupid this was, but I didn’t want things to escalate further.
Post away.
Re: Mall security
Unfrigginbelievable:OhMy:. Nice of the undercover guy to get the job done while uniformed one stands there and does jack..Geez:thunbsdown:
I think if you had done something other than talking, who knows how the cops would’ve reacted? Pegged you as some vigilante? Hard to say as I’m just going by what you said.
Re: Mall security
I didn’t want to place myself into a liability issue if he had been hurt and I was involved. I had figured I may be able to distract him for long enough for the real help to arrive and it worked.
I also figure that the police might want to talk to me alot if I was to hurt him. Plus the crowd wouldn’t have been very helpful. Luckily they responded well.
Re: Mall security
Liability, liability, liability…. I hate that word, but you are absolutely right. If no ones life was in danger, you might as well be a great witness… especially when it comes to a property crime like this. With the information you provided, it sounds like I would have done about the same thing. Good for you.
Re: Mall security
It sounds wrong, but my concern was keeping this from going any further because of the kids. I wouldn’t put myself at risk (liability), but I didn’t want this security guard or crowd to get out of hand.
I found out later last night that the chief instructor made this into a great marketing tool and passed out alot of flyers and signed up people for trial classes. So hey everyone won, except the guy who is sitting in jail.
Re: Mall security
Wow – I wondered what happened to those guys who washed out of the police academies… They got their Smokey the Bear hats and went to work in the malls!
Blindfold, that was a tough situation you were in but I’d say that you handled things very well. As a cop, I can really understand two things about this: 1.) How quickly that could have blown up into a full-scale poop storm, and; 2.) What it’s like to be rolling around on the ground with a suspect while your “partner” is standing by, watching.
Damn, but did that situation ever have bad thing potential!
I really liked the marketing happy ending, though!
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