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Buying a TV while Black

Stout said:
If you believe the cops...

Sam's Club said the TV was stolen so cops tried to arrest Derek. Derek resisted and attempted to use a fire extinguisher as a weapon against the cops. Mavia went ballistic and got physical with the cops. The cops called in more cops.

Are the cops lying ? Maybe but since a lawsuit has been filed we're not going to get much more information on this until the suit is settled.
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I believe the cops.

Not saying cops don't lie ever, and not saying cops don't develop racial biases - but I am saying that the racial biases they develop are firmly rooted in their "lived experience" and are an entirely appropriate and understandable reaction to what they encounter.

Generally, though, I think they do a pretty good job of setting aside their biases when dealing with each new encounter. It's just that each new encounter with black people tends to function as a complete renewal / establishment of said biases even if they hadn't existed prior to it.

So, if the store incorrectly indicated the TV was stolen, that is a really sucky thing to happen to anyone who's just trying to return a TV. If that led to attention from police, I could see how that would be irritating, embarrassing, and frustrating. To be falsely accused of stealing a TV when you'd already dealt with nonsense about it earlier during purchase? This is the kind of stuff which most of us would be kvetching about to anyone who'd listen for years to come. We'd also probably leave a nasty review or call some managers, maybe.

What we wouldn't do is start swinging fire extinguishers and losing our minds in a way that is inevitably going to ramp things up and get the police to respond physically. No, that behavior is almost exclusively the province of blacks. A small number of whites will behave in that way, but I worry they may end up being sued for copyright infringement by the black community.
 
Babbylonian said:
They returned because of indignation over the accusation of stealing the TV. Most likely, the son got the TV home to give to his mom, told her the story, and she got pissed off and told him he needed to return it and, "By the way, I'm going with you to give someone a piece of my mind."

When I was a kid, I was yelled at (for examining a button at an escalator - seriously) by an employee at Montgomery Ward while I was with my grandparents. My grandma told off the manager, paid the balance on their Montgomery Ward credit card, closed the account, and my grandparents never went to one of their stores again...after shopping there regularly for years.
My point being that the indignation that comes when someone feels a close family member has been mistreated...it can be powerful.
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I admire your grandparents' protective feelings over you, but it sounds to me like they overreacted big time.

Are they white? It sounds like a very white version of overreaction. I'm glad your grandpa didn't start swinging a fire extinguisher around. That would not have been very white.
 
theprestige said:
I figured it was something like that. Just trying to wrap my head around the idea of "we wanted the TV, we have the TV, Sam's Club had our back; let's ditch the TV and yell at Sam's Club". Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
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i believe one employee at Sam's Club didn't have their back. He was the one who thought they were stealing the TV. Or at least he probably asked them for a receipt or something.
 
theprestige said:
They didn't meet that guy until after they returned to do the return, though, right? So he can't have factored into their decision to return it.
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That's not my understanding of this (horribly reported) incident. From the article I just linked:

"When Derek Gray returned to get the television, the lawsuit says, a store employee didn’t believe he had purchased it, and he was forced to come inside to customer service to show the receipt."

That incident, when told to his mother, caused them to decide to return it. Then during the return, something happened, and the rest is poorly reported history.
 
You have to figure that a guy working in security would know not to fight the cops or, if you're going to fight them fight them in court, not in the street. Cops are trained to not loose fights on the street.

Marvia, OTOH, well she was just stupid. Grandmother or not, there's a very real possibility that she could have a gun in her purse ( this is "Murica, right ? ) so it's understandable why the cops would want to get the cuffs on her once she started doing her thing.
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
That's not my understanding of this (horribly reported) incident. From the article I just linked:

"When Derek Gray returned to get the television, the lawsuit says, a store employee didn’t believe he had purchased it, and he was forced to come inside to customer service to show the receipt."

That incident, when told to his mother, caused them to decide to return it. Then during the return, something happened, and the rest is poorly reported history.
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Ah, then yeah, I can see them wanting to return the TV.

Though, isn't it pretty normal for a store to ask for proof of purchase or whatever, before turning over an item being held for pickup?
 
theprestige said:
Ah, then yeah, I can see them wanting to return the TV.

Though, isn't it pretty normal for a store to ask for proof of purchase or whatever, before turning over an item being held for pickup?
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Of course, if they don't recognize you. Or even if they do.

It probably has to do with how it was asked or how it was interpreted as having been asked. According to the purchasers, they were accused of having stolen the TV.
 
Dave Rogers said:
Satire of the arguments and strawman positions typically proffered by racists when it's suggested that an incident might be racially motivated; firstly claim that the wimpy liberals want it to be racism, secondly attack the victim. Sorry if the sarcasm wasn't clear enough.

Dave
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I got the sarcasm straight away.

I am having trouble seeing how it could be taken any other way.
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
If by "source" you mean unverified claim that it was posted by someone at some point on Facebook, then I'm your guy.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local...cle_8a1db018-1620-5dd8-bddc-b542978b49b0.html

(It's the same link posted upthread, but I remembered the fire extinguisher part)
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I don't see any TV in the footage. I do see a black man having a heated, non-violent argument with a store employee. First cop to enter immediately wants to cuff the black man. A black woman interferes.

There is a scam where a buyer takes something home, opens the box carefully, maybe from the bottom, reloads the box with bricks for weight, and returns his purchase for refund. IF that was what went on, and the person at the return counter spotted the scam, then yes, theft happened. "Buyer" wants the box, the evidence, back. Things escalate. But if that was the real story I think somebody would be up on charges of um, I think it's called "commercial burglary".
 
So here is what I see.

The mother and the son are having a conversation with a store employee.The son is becoming agitated and the mother is gesturing for him to go away and let her handle it. The son goes out of the store but comes back in again and is becoming agitated.

After a long time the first policeman comes in and, without having any discussion, starts to arrest the son. Another policeman comes in to assist this arrest. The mother approaches but we can't exactly see what she is doing.

The mother then starts walking away and the second policeman follows her. She holds up her hand as though to ward him away and the policeman grabs her and pushes her up against a wall. The son, seeing this, moves over to come to his mother's aid and the first policeman grabs him and slams him hard against the fire extinguisher on the wall. The son grabs the fire extinguisher that the policeman slammed him against and throws it back at the policeman who pushes him to the floor. The mother tries to approach her son and the second policeman also pushes the mother to the floor.

They are on the floor apparently struggling and the third policeman comes in to help to restrain the son and then the second policeman has finally got the cuffs on the mother.

A bit hard to see how the policeman could have interpreted this as a robbery.
 
theprestige said:
Who said it was a robbery?
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I don't know who suggested this, but the police report says that the officer was responding to a larceny in process and at the end said that they would be proceeding with stealing charges.

It is difficult to see from the video how this could have been interpreted as larceny or stealing.
 
Lot of white people in this thread going [Dave Chappelle white person voice] Oh, dear, there is something not right. There must be more to the story.

Yeah. There isn't. Dollars to dog turds that if the TV purchaser was white, the cops help him carry it out to his car.
 
The cops had a duty to deescalate this instead of arresting people then charging them with resisting arrest. There are no circumstances they needed to react to contempt of cop, none!

I hope they get millions from the city/county/whomever.
 
paiute said:
Lot of white people in this thread going [Dave Chappelle white person voice] Oh, dear, there is something not right. There must be more to the story.

Yeah. There isn't. Dollars to dog turds that if the TV purchaser was white, the cops help him carry it out to his car.
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This ^
 
paiute said:
Lot of white people in this thread going [Dave Chappelle white person voice] Oh, dear, there is something not right. There must be more to the story.

Yeah. There isn't. Dollars to dog turds that if the TV purchaser was white, the cops help him carry it out to his car.
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The "carry it out to the car" was a separate incident. And I will bet Dollars to dog Turds that there is more to the story.
 
Stout said:
You have to figure that a guy working in security would know not to fight the cops or, if you're going to fight them fight them in court, not in the street. Cops are trained to not loose fights on the street.

Marvia, OTOH, well she was just stupid. Grandmother or not, there's a very real possibility that she could have a gun in her purse ( this is "Murica, right ? ) so it's understandable why the cops would want to get the cuffs on her once she started doing her thing.
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:rolleyes:
 
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