Raid on Kmart: 425 arrested - Unbelievable

[dew042]

Texas.....mmmm....

This amazed me....

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/topstory2/1539629

dew.

 

[iamwiz82]

if i was the business owner, i would have pressed charges. I remember what i used to do in parking lots as a teen. Thats my opinion.

 

[bmacd]

*printing to take into work tomorrow morning (@ kmart)*

-=bmacd=-

 

[dew042]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
if i was the business owner, i would have pressed charges. I remember what i used to do in parking lots as a teen. Thats my opinion.

10 year old girls with their fathers are definately a danger to society, right?

425 people - not just hoodlums. Most were normal everyday people shopping and eating.

dew.

 

[Electric Amish]

Sounds like the proper response by the police/business owner.

amish

 

[Vette73]

Lawyers within 100miles must be drooling right now..

The people that had reciepts, and the 10 year old girl, etc... have such a tight case for false arrest, let alone what a lawyer will tack on.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

man, if something like that happened to me I can gaurantee I'd resist arrest and fight back. F that crap. Some pig tries to pull sh!t like that and take away my basic liberties(which is what they were doing) I'm going revolutionary on their @sses. Don't take this kinda crap laying down. And if it was a misdomenor there was no reason to put people in jail instead of just giving them tickets. This was Houston trying to make a quick $$ off of bail charges, plain and simple.

 

[Evadman]

I sence a whole bunch of lawsuits over this. Just aresting teens who happen to be in a prking lot of an OPEN store. Please.

 

[amnesiac]

Originally posted by: Electric Amish
Sounds like the proper response by the police/business owner.

amish

Apprehending everyone including legitimate customers is a proper response?
What next then, apprehending everyone in surrounding homes because they're within a few hundred yards of the store?

 

[CubicZirconia]

I'm thinking the Houston Police Department isn't going to hear the last of that for a long time....If some of those kids really were just entering/exiting Kmart then someone is going to be in trouble.

 

[iamwiz82]

i'd have to beat the head of the father who was taking his 10 year old to dinner at kmarts at 12:30am!!

 

[Electric Amish]

Originally posted by: amnesiac 2.0

Originally posted by: Electric Amish
Sounds like the proper response by the police/business owner.

amish

Apprehending everyone including legitimate customers is a proper response?
What next then, apprehending everyone in surrounding homes because they're within a few hundred yards of the store?

I've never heard of a Kmart open at midnight.

amish

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: Electric Amish

Originally posted by: amnesiac 2.0

Originally posted by: Electric Amish
Sounds like the proper response by the police/business owner.

amish

Apprehending everyone including legitimate customers is a proper response?
What next then, apprehending everyone in surrounding homes because they're within a few hundred yards of the store?

I've never heard of a Kmart open at midnight.

amish

Our K-Mart here is open 24-7...same with Walmart and most of the grocery stores.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: Electric Amish

Originally posted by: amnesiac 2.0

Originally posted by: Electric Amish
Sounds like the proper response by the police/business owner.

amish

Apprehending everyone including legitimate customers is a proper response?
What next then, apprehending everyone in surrounding homes because they're within a few hundred yards of the store?

I've never heard of a Kmart open at midnight.

amish

If you read the article you would have seen it was a 24hr Kmart, and the Sonic was also OPEN!!



Here is the Quote from the paper...


"The Kmart store is open 24 hours a day, and many of the people at the HPD station at 61 Reisner said Sunday that they had simply been shopping or eating at a Sonic drive-in restaurant that adjoins the discount store's parking lot when they were arrested. "

 

[nater]

This is ridiculous. I can't belive some of you are supporting the business owners. It is obvious from the article, and from the fact that over 400 people were all gathered at once in a parking lot that quite a few of them had to have just been innocent customers. Yes it may be right to arrest the people that habitually hang out, leave trash, drink, whatever people do in parking lots; but arresting what seems to be nearly everyone in the parking lot does not seem the right way to do it. Where I live kids occasionally hang out in the parkings lots, but it is never more than 10-15 cars, and the police just tell them to go home. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in most places you are legally allowed to stay on certain properties until you consume your food/beverage anyways, are you not?

 

[StattlichPassat]

:Q ....WTF?!?!?! :disgust::|

 

[Scouzer]

Thats crazy! I bet some of those people were actually doing something illegal, but to take all of them, WTF! The 10 year old was even more bizarre. Very retarded move by the police department...but I spose not very many people will be hanging out in the parking lot anymore...

 

[StattlichPassat]

Originally posted by: amnesiac 2.0

Originally posted by: Electric Amish
Sounds like the proper response by the police/business owner.

amish

Apprehending everyone including legitimate customers is a proper response?
What next then, apprehending everyone in surrounding homes because they're within a few hundred yards of the store?

Exactly- makes as much sense as the other does. :disgust:

 

[clicknext]

Wow... Kmart... havn't gone to one of those in more than 10 years.

Oh, right, this thing is about the police thing... umm I'll just say I'm glad I live in Canada.

 

[StattlichPassat]

Originally posted by: Scouzer
Thats crazy! I bet some of those people were actually doing something illegal, but to take all of them, WTF! The 10 year old was even more bizarre. Very retarded move by the police department...but I spose not very many people will be hanging out in the parking lot anymore...

VERY retarted move by the police dept- whoever authorized that move is going to have their @$$ fired or worse (and hopefully some of those officers too). I hope much worse. I cannot believe a police department anywhere would actually do something as insanely crazy as this. Bring on the lawsuits! I hope to see the City of Houston purged of millions of dollars. :|

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

I say everyone in houston should boycott that K-mart. Show them that if they let police treat their customers like that they won't support them, then when the K-mart closes down no one can call the Five Oh when the people hangout there.

 

[goodoptics]

<< Scores of Houston police officers swarmed onto the Kmart parking lot in the 8400 block of Westheimer about 12:30 a.m. Sunday and arrested about 425 people for criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor. >>

<< The Kmart store is open 24 hours a day, and many of the people at the HPD station at 61 Reisner said Sunday that they had simply been shopping or eating at a Sonic drive-in restaurant that adjoins the discount store's parking lot when they were arrested. >>

How do you trespass a 24/7 store???

 

[RGN]

If I was arrested wronfully over that, heads would rollllllllllll.

 

[badluck]

Sounds like the proper response by the police/business owner.

Dood, you are an idiot....


Oh, and did you read that the Kmart was open 24 hours a day?

 

[yllus]

I feel bad for the people who pled guilty just get it over with - what's this going to do to their youth employment chances, with something on their record? If I was Houston's PD I'd be dropping charges really quick in anticipation of "lost wages" lawsuits later on.

Edit! Followup story: Raid went to 'hell in a handbasket' say officers on the scene

Officers on the scene called the arrests "utterly, utterly senseless" on Monday, and said the captain in charge, Mark Aguirre, ordered them to round up everyone who was outside the 24-hour Kmart Super Center or eating at the Sonic Drive-In next door.

"I couldn't believe we were being told to arrest all those kids. It was just utterly, utterly senseless," said one officer involved, who violated department policy by discussing the arrests and spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Captain Aguirre was put in charge, and it went to hell in a handbasket," said a police supervisor who was at the scene, also violating department policy and requesting anonymity.

"That operation had been planned for weeks," one of the supervisors said. "It was not planned with the intent to arrest everyone in sight. It was to arrest drag racers."

"But we got out there, and no one was racing," said one of the supervisors. "So Aguirre just said, `Arrest them all for trespass.'

"It was like, `Kill them all and let God sort them out,' " said the other supervisor. "I guess we're just lucky he didn't order us to fire warning shots into the crowd or anything."