Best Buy Has Man Arrested for Using $2 Bills 2088
An anonymous reader writes "Mike Bolesta of Baltimore thought he would protest Best Buy's not-so-great customer service and pay his bill with 57 $2 bills. For his trouble he got to spend some time in the county lock-up." From the article: "..Bolesta was contacted by the store, and was threated with police action if he did not pay the [installation] fee he was told before did not exist. As a sign of protest, Bolesta decided to pay using only $2 bills, which he has an abundance of because he asks his bank for them specifically. Unfortunately for him, the cashier did not seem to understand that the $2 bill is indeed legal US tender, since the bill itself is not often used. After rudely refusing to take the money, the cashier accepted the bills, only to mark them as though they were conterfeit."
the cashier may have been stupid... (Score:3, Insightful)
Disgusting (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, potentially counterfeit (as judged by a Best Buy employee!) $2 bills are top on my priority list after 9/11. It's so I can't even sleep at night. Thank god we've got people like "spokesman" Bill Toohey protecting us. I don't know what's scarier: That he'd say something like that, or that there's probably a couple hundred million Americans who would nod their heads in "understanding".
This story has everything: Evil Best Buy. Stupid and ignorant employees with a bizarre sense of power and no sense of customer service. Questionable law enforcement policies. Idiot using 9/11 as the ultimate cop-out.
The only problem with the story is that this time the Feds came in and the situation got better.
Mr. Mike Bolesta, please do not rest until everyone responsible for this debacle is severely reprimanded, fined, or has their employment terminated. They are your oppressors. Rise up against them.
9/11? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING???
I had better not find myself jaywalking next time I go to Otakon, or else I might get shot on sight. You know how those terrorists are always committing minor felonies and misdemeanors...
BestBuy cashier broke the law (Score:4, Insightful)
So the headline should say "BestBuy cashier broke the law".
Re:Outrageously exceeding authority (Score:3, Insightful)
It's been 30 years... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been 30 years since I've seen a $2 bill, but I don't work in retail.
People typically don't work in retail very long, and retail sales people often aren't 30 years old, so there must be many who have never seen a $2 bill.
Judge Dredd Police State (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It finally happened (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:9/11? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF is this doing in YRO? (Score:2, Insightful)
There is such a thing as bad publicity... (Score:3, Insightful)
Best Buy really needs to get its act together and start a new focus on customer service. Otherwise, they're going to lose a significant amount of their business to online retailers, and others that are still bricks-n-mortar.
Re:Outrageously exceeding authority (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a well known fact that Best Buy hires only the stupidest people it can find, but a cop ought to at least know what currencies are legal.
Re:9/11? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Would be a good excuse.
"sorry im late for the examn, but in this post 9/11 world, nobody can be sure to arrive in time"
"sorry i could not finish the project, in this post 9/11 world i needed to check for terrorists which cost too much time..."
hm
seems only to work for state authorities.
Impressions (Score:2, Insightful)
Any more sink-the-company ideas? (Score:3, Insightful)
First Best Buy was on Slashdot for allegedly abusive practices concerning rebates. Now this. Does Best Buy management have any more sink-the-company ideas?
The correct way to handle this was for Best Buy top management to apologize to everyone, and give the guy whatever he wants from the store free. Apparently they still haven't done that.
If it were me, if I were the Best Buy CEO, I would be on the phone now, saying to the guy, "Can I personally deliver our top-of-the-line home theatre to your house in 30 minutes? It's free. In return, I need you to sign this form accepting our sincere apologies." Then all the stories would be about what a great deal the guy got.
But no. Now that Osama bin Laden showed the way, everyone has to imitate violent extremist fundamentalist Arabs now, don't they? Treat everyone else with hostility.
Re:It finally happened (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on. At most this guy deserves a refund for them charging for a service they had said they were going to do free of charge.
He has a right to lodge a complaint against the police for a bad arrest, but does he really deserve some huge settlement for it? If he did win a lawsuit against the department it would just effect the taxpayers of that area. Ever wonder why thing cost so much these days? It is because consumers have to bear the weight of these constant lawsuits.
I swear, the American facination for Free Money by way of suing someone disgusts me. That is the thing that most makes me embarrased about being an American. Everyone wants to make a quick buck for being wronged, but all that really happens is that the companies being sued pass on the expense to their consumers.
Re:the cashier may have been stupid... (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, you obviously missed the DMCA and the Patriot Act. The latter was passed by Congress without a single Senator or Representative having read it.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:2, Insightful)
"I don't know what makes for a good wrongful arrest suit. .
Being wrongfully arrested will do it, especially on the unsubstantiated complaint of an individual. He's got a good case if he really wants to be a prick to Best Buy, and who wouldn't want that?
The police/DA/judge fucked up big time too, as there obviously wasn't suffcient evidence to generate a legitimate warrant on a conterfeiting charge, like, possession of a bill deemed to be counterfeit by an expert and alleged to have been passed by the guy, and since the guy apparently was not apprehended in the act (no, I haven't read the article), a warrant should have been necessary.
If he were apprehended in the act, the converstaion should have gone something like this:
"Officer, he's trying to give me two dollar bills!"
"Yeah. So? What are you, some kind of moron?"
Unless, of course, the officer was some kind of moron.
Of course, thanks to the city of New London, CT the public should be more aware that they are often tested for that before being allowed to join the force (over intelligence is deemed to create job dissatisfaction with the role of police officer, or at least that's how they like to explain it these days. In the old days they were more honest in admiting that they wished police to function as automatons).
KFG
Re:The Two Dollar Man (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Shouldn't a manager have intervened? (Score:3, Insightful)
Its not like a single cashier held this person here, and arrested them, many people were involved in this fuck up.
Re:If you were to read the original article (Score:5, Insightful)
Identical numbers is believable, for a simple copying setup, but sequential? Whatever mechanism a counterfeiter has to add serial numbers to the unnumbered bills coming off the copier/printer, making it a non-repeating psuedo-random sequence, or simply adding 4357 instead of 1 for each cycle, is trivial.
Alternate Story Link (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not just Best Buy. It's the moron manager, the idiot cashiers, and the dumb-fucking cop. I hope this guy sues the shit out of not only the store, but the police department. People get sequential serial numbers on money all the time, especially when they get their money from banks.
Re:It's been happening for a long time already (Score:5, Insightful)
Bestbuy Required to Take Money? (Score:2, Insightful)
From the research that I have done, it seems like Best Buy was obligated to accept the payment because they had already provided the service and he was paying a debt.
Here is an excerpt from an interesting article I found on
http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Legal_tender
Legal tender in the United States
As laid down in the United States Coinage Act of 1965, all coins and currencies of the United States, regardless of when coined or issued, shall be legal-tender for all debts, public and private, public charges, taxes, duties and dues.
However, US federal law does not restrict private businesses, persons or organisations in what methods of payment they choose to accept or refuse. Businesses are therefore free to insist on payment by credit card, for example, or to refuse larger denomination banknotes. Even further though, legal tender laws do not preclude businesses from choosing to reject U.S. dollars for payment altogether. In this regard legal tender laws do not pertain to voluntary transactions.
However, when the transactions are non voluntary such as in the payment of a debt, any legal tender must be accepted.
Another excerpt from the previous webpage
As legal tender can be refused until a person is in debt, vending machines and transport staff do not have to accept the largest denomination of banknote for a single bus fare or bar of chocolate, and even shopkeepers can reject large banknotes. However, restaurants that do not collect money until after a meal is served would have to accept any legal tender, though they would not be obliged to provide change - the restaurant is not in debt, it has been given a gift.
Related Court Cases:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?
Re:Outrageously exceeding authority (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:For ultracynics... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:50 Cent with the Northern Touch (Score:3, Insightful)
Both were replaced by large coins, making everybody's pockets MUCH heavier...
Odds are the clerk at the store was too young to remember even seeing those bills.
I feel sorry for the kid (Score:5, Insightful)
The article says that he used to give kids $2 bills as lunch money. It's an uncommon item, and the kids thought it was neat. A source of some amusement.
Now his son doesn't want to take them, because of the trouble it caused. What's the lesson? Straying from the norm gets you in trouble. A little uniqueness used to be a source of amusement, now it's a source of fear. I feel sad about this.
It reminds me of the Harry Chapin song, "Flowers Are Red".
Re:If you were to read the original article (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If you were to read the original article (Score:3, Insightful)
We can count out professional criminals (intelligent and organized) since there is no economy of scale for counterfeiting $2 bills.
That said, the rest of the criminal gene pool for this type of activity is probably too stupid to even think of using a "non-repeating pseudo-random sequence".
These are the type of people that buy a soda with their own credit card just prior to committing armed robbery in the very same store. As a cheap source of comedy, however, stupid criminals do serve a greater purpose in society.
Re:So... when's MY turn ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Really... I've NEVER had anyone complain - except for that brief moment of confusion about where to put them - about the 2s... and I've had tons of people get a smile on their face on getting more 2s in one hit then they've seen in their entire lives.
Quite simply, it's cool. It puts a little something unusual into people's lives... makes an otherwise boring, same-old-same-old, day for these counter clerks into something to remember... at least for a few hours.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Other than that I haven't see them in circulation.
Re:Points Too Frequently Over-looked or Unmentione (Score:1, Insightful)
I regularly obtain $2 bills from my bank, they are always SEQUENTIAL (since the teller gives them to me in those straps) and the ink is most of the time SMEARING (almost all new bills are like this).
Any teller would tell you that sequential number and smearing ink is a "hint" (I don't have a better word) that the bills are REAL.
Re:Not quite arrested, but close (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy to tell the things apart from others, and they naturally sort themselves out in your pocket. Makes me not miss the old "Isaac Newton" quid that was phased out in the 'eighties. It's also the best reason I can think of for Great Britain to stay out of the Euro.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The police probably didn't do anything wrong, although what they did was probably unnecessary. Best Buy on the other hand is going to keep a few lawyers employed for the near future.
-Restil
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Visit somewhere in Europe and see how it makes sense.
Re:Not quite arrested, but close (Score:1, Insightful)
no place to put them? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't cashiers just stick them under the tray, like coupons, $50s, or other unusual things they have to keep track of?
Re:the cashier may have been stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
What did he expect? (Score:2, Insightful)
I am saying this as someone who has done a lot of stupid, provocative things in my life: I once pretended a cardboard poster tube was a bazooka in front of an armored car driver. He did get a really funny scared expression on his face, then reached for his gun before seeing my trick. I laughed, but he stayed calm and pointed out how my survival had depended on his not being a fool. I took that to heart and thanked god for my limited success that day. I'm not saying I don't still provoke people for the sheer pleasure of it (especially when they piss me off), I am just saying that I don't pretend I am innocent if it backfires on me.
Now it's fun to laugh at the morons out there who don't know the finer points of US currency, or tell the school bully "his epidermis is showing", just be ready to acknowledge your complicity in the ass-whooping you might eventually get.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it does. Most countries aren't so silly as to make all of their bill denominations the same size and color. But that's another rant.
Re:Not quite arrested, but close (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Those almost completely worthless pens are supposed to make a black mark if it's printed on paper, as opposed to the fabric actual bills are printed on. They're just iodine! It reacts with paper and turns black. They aren't some magical counterfit detecting thing.
Having smeared ink on money is rare, but it happens. If you get it, you should take it to the bank and they'll replace it. It's not very common sign of counterfitting...counterfitters don't use ink that runs either.
Oh, and I love the concept that sequential bill numbers are somehow suspicious. Yeah, the counterfitters have the ability to change numbers (Which many do not), and decided they'd make it easy on themselves by counting in one direction, instead of just picking random numbers. Riiiight.
Sequential bill numbers are the opposite of suspicious WRT counterfitting, the only way you get those is at a bank, and banks do not get counterfit money from the mint. (He might have robbed a bank, but that's an entire different matter.)
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:2, Insightful)
if i wanted to pay retail +10% +Tax or more, id go to comp usa and get a properly price screwed.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Excuse me, but how exactly does one equate suspected small-scale counterfeiting with hijacking airliners, flying them into buildings and killing thousands of people?
If this signifies anything, it's how, in the post-9/11 world, American society has gotten so moronic, brow-beaten and petrified that cops seriously expect us to buy such a flimsy excuse for their Gestapo tactics.
By the way, I went to grade school in Cockeysville, MD. My parents live only a few miles away. I'll make sure they avoid that particular store.
Re:Any more sink-the-company ideas? (Score:3, Insightful)
Best quote (from memory) from Crossing The Chasm [wikipedia.org]: "Ship as fast as you can and ignore the customer".
I realise that this is a marketing strategy more tailored towards individual products, but I think the concept holds.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the only coins which have remained the same from the decimialisation until now are the 20p and the pound coin, no doubt the'll have there sights on changing the 20
Problem is the dolar is now so wide spread, it'd be an almost impossible task to replace all of them, mabie someone will but it'd take at least 20 years to get near 100% usage of the new notes.
Where's the fun (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only do I not get the humour but I get the outrage even less. Why do people get mad when they spend two dollar bills and the seller doesn't recognize it as legal tender. By very nature of the fact that the spender is going out of his way to get two dollar bills he has to recognize that they are rarely used and many don't know they exist. Don't you give up your right to be outraged by people questioning your actions when you've chosen actions just so that they would raise questions?
If you enjoy creating conflict with these kinds of stunts then fine. I mean I still don't get it but your fun doesn't seem to harm anyone. But if you're going to get angry when people respond to the bait that you are laying out for them then why do it? And I certainly don't think there's any reason to have empathy for you if you do get exactly the responce you were hoping for.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I threw in a few loose coins like I typically do here. oops, I apperently tipped $10.00 on a $13.00 breakfast.
I bet I made somebody happy though.
The entire time I was in England I was confused as to why I would have loose change worth more then I usually cary in cash in the US.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Guess you haven't been to Ecuador. Here, where the US dollar is the official currency, you get golden dollar coins as change at least as often as the $1 bills, probably more.
Personally, I'm super-ticked that the US Mint quit making the things. They beat the crap out of $1 bills, and cost the government so much less to make and maintain. Why the heck didn't the gov't just ignore the whiners and pull the $1 bill?
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not quite arrested, but close (Score:1, Insightful)
If fricking gas stations weren't owned by morons, managed by morons, and staffed by morons, there would be no problem with accepting $50 or $100 bills. Ever hear of a timed drop safe? Every retail establishment should have one and any large bills and drawer cash totalling over $100 should go in it frequently. (Large bills immediately.) I am sick and tired of walking in to some loser fracking crap hole gas station and getting crap about paying for $27 of gas with a $50. Meanwhile, I notice when they open the cash drawer that they must not have been to the bank or used a safe all week...seriously...must have been $3,000 or $4,000 in that drawer. Same thing at numerous restaurants and other establishments in the area. They are going to get robbed because someone CAN SEE $4,000 in their drawer, not because they accept $50 bills that should immediately be placed in a whole in the floor.
The business owners and managers whom refuse to install and maintain this equipment should be sued out of existance by anyone that is robbed. Most retail businesses require some type of timed drop safe and frequent skimming. However, in most cases, the timer is broken, the lock doesn't work, and employees are bitched out for wasting time to skim the tills. If you are smart enough to know what bullshit this is, move on--get out of that shithole. If not, at least wisen up to the existance and legality of $2, $50, and $100 bills and STFU.
Legal tender is LEGAL TENDER. My congrats to the gentleman in Michigan. I am looking for a similar law in Indiana now. In fact, this should be a federal law. At the very least, if they refuse my $50, they'll be taking a $20 deduction for the time it takes me to go get them "small bills" or waiting until the next time I stop by their establishment (6 months after an incident of this sort) to get their payment.
I'd love to have the local dumbshit donut chomper throw me to the ground over a $2, $50, or $100 bill. I am highly confident I can unload his weapon and kick his ass before the county mounties show up. Then, when they show up, break a few bones and such...I'll enjoy living in my brand new home in the next county over (to avoid the new, excessive property taxes in the prior county.) What?? You don't like me for raising your property taxes?? Why don't you pay more attention to the dumbshits working for you? Like school employees embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars, county and city cops barely smart enough to flip burgers, et cetera.
Get a grip and be glad SOMEONE is out there defending the rights of lazy asses such as yourself.
DISCLAIMER: I live in a small town...where things are supposed to be rosy and sweet. In fact, quite the opposite. No business or government employee believes in service. If you don't like the $20 burnt or half cooked pizza, you can shove it...go to Pizza Hut 25 miles over. If you don't like the phone service, go somehwere else they say...there is no one else. Thank God Comcast came here. They have already taken most of the phone companies Internet business (only ISP before now) and if VOIP takes off, these morons are done.
Have a nice day.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:4, Insightful)
People that stupid should be euthanized. Seriously.
new favorite denomination (Score:2, Insightful)
So, they admitted false arrest? (Score:3, Insightful)
Cops Don't Have 6-8 Degrees, Nor Should They (Score:3, Insightful)
The question is not, as you claim, whether it's reasonable to hold someone given reasonable suspicion. The question is how much doubt must be present -- this man attempted to use legal tender to satisfy a debt, and given my cash-handling experience I don't see any reason to have doubted him.
Exactly. You were a bank teller. Your job was to handle money, handle money and, uh, handle money.
If your training and experience did not involve significantly more understanding of money than a police officer is required to have, in order to have reasonable doubt, then you really shouldn't have worked as a bank teller.
I'm a programmer. There will be cases that are completely obvious to me that are not hacking. That in no way invalidates an officer saying, "OK, there's enough here for me to be suspicious enough to hold someone until I can get an expert to tell me one way or the other."
The officer didn't know. Nor, frankly, was it his job to know. If we required every police officer to have the training and experience of a bank teller in order for them to be able to deal with counterfeiting, what other training should we also require? We should definitely have them gain qualification as mechanics in order to be able to tell the difference between a scuffed VIN number and one that was actually tampered with. As with the hacking issue, a four year bachelor's in Computer Science should probably be sufficient. And, given things like identical twins and other false positives in those areas that an expert could also dismiss, a medical degree is an absolute must too. So, these fifty year old guys with their six or eight degrees... How much do tax payers pay them again?
You were a bank teller. It was your job to know these details about cash. He was a police officer. It was his job to know enough to have a pretty good idea when and when not to be suspicious enough to hold someone until he can get an expert to give him more information.
Ask the officer to quote miranda rights or penal codes, he'll likely be an expert. Ask him to quote, with the same degree of knowledge as a bank teller, the signs for counterfeit money and of course he'll fall down. His job is to have a fair idea of when to be suspicious and then to get an expert. If we wanted every cop in America to have the amount of education necessary to know as much as professionals in every field tey investigate, we'd be paying 100% tax and then some in order to keep these fine professionals.
Given your experience, it was unreasonable. Given his experience, it was something he considered reasonable.
Wrong-o, and here's why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just try to tuck a Euro into a dancer's garter belt.
Low denomination bills have their uses. ;^)
Re:Outrageously exceeding authority (Score:1, Insightful)
Bullshit. He has the same right as you and I to due process, and you don't need any special training to know that. We all have to be able to understand the law in order to follow it.
Get this through your skull: the guy did nothing illegal. And even though he was suspected of counterfeiting, he was mistreated as a suspect, and discovered that cooperating with the police gets you nowhere. In today's paranoid version of Amerika, you are guilty until proven innocent.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that a scam can start with those words is a reason to be wary. It is not a reason to shut a person down before they have a chance to explain what the mistake was.
Many a scam starts out with "Hello" too. Assuming that every conversation which starts with "Hello" is a scam is not only stupid, it's bad business.
Assuming that your customers are con artists causes you to end conversations which would otherwise have benefitted you - as was the case with my conversation with the Woolworth's cashier.
I didn't make the assumption that the cashier I encountered was a typical employee, but if she treated others the way she treated me I'd imagine that Woolworth's lost a hell of a lot of business.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Debit card withdrawals are traceable for one, that can be evil. They require some sort of communications device which is not always practical on a vending machine for two. The third is do you really want to trust every little mom and pop shop with your bank account info and PIN code? Sure you enter it into a keypad, but it's not a hard job to figure out what buttons were pushed...
Credit cards are better if you have the discipline to pay them off monthy. Cash is still king though, I don't want anyone knowing what, when or where I buy stuff. It can only hurt or at best irritate me.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Stop printing $1 bills. Eventually people will have to make the switch because there won't be any bills left after a few years.
N.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
But you (ie: USA) have a slight issue:
You'd have to rejig your sales tax system to scrap penny coins.
If something is advertised at $4.00, you end up paying $4.00 + tax, and it's to allow for this tax which is often in the individual cent range, you have to keep the penny coin.
In New Zealand, by contrast, virtually all retailers quote tax-inclusive prices, and they're often rounded to 5 cents (our smallest coin is the 5 cent piece).
Reserve Bank of New Zealand [rbnz.govt.nz].
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
She's a cashier; it's her job to know what currency is and is not valid.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
In Britain we don't have the felony/misdemeanour distinction that you have in the USA. And you'd have to go back before the founding of the USA to find an era when execution was anything like that universal a punishment. Sounds apocryphal to me...
Re: US bills all the same size (Score:1, Insightful)
Not everyone can see the bills. If you are blind, having the values printed on bills the same size is of little use.
Some currencies have braille-like raised marks on the bills to aid blind and partially sighted people, but simply having different sized bills for each denomination helps.
As a matter of interest, if having all the bills the same size is such a good idea, why aren't all coins the same size as well?
Note that some people in this discussion have complained that Susan B Anthony dollars and quarters are too similar.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:2, Insightful)
your country thinks our money is silly, and we think the same of yours when someone comes back from a vacation with money that looks like it came out of our childrens board games. We associate bright colors with fake money because for years and years thats been the case here. People didnt like the mild use of color on the new $20 that came out last year, it doesnt look like american money, its not all green...and after years upon years of having just green money, you get used to it.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Best Buy created the situation by being hostile with their own customer. Then they made it worse by continuing to be hostile with their customer.
US legal tender and you (Score:1, Insightful)
As for you skeptics wondering why on earth we would keep currency we no longer produce in circulation. Your country eventually phases out currency when new ones are introduced. Well, for one thing the $2 bill isn't being phased out by any means. And we, just like you (yes, shocking), phase out currency when it is no longer valid.
Again, looking at the treasury's website (the internet is wonderful isn't it), it explains all of these topics and more!
To the cashier in Best Buy. You are a lesser being, my friend. If you have any doubts, you don't call the police first thing, you ask somebody else, mabye one of the other cashiers (the ones in the normal check out lines) who probably have seen some strange things in their day. Or you do like any reasonable geek would do and check the internet.
To the police. I wish we could have smarter police. I know, it's not really your fault and I'm sure this wasn't your dream career choice. But try to act with some reason. You don't arrest people that pay in sequential bills. There are countless of other things you can do. A. actually talk to the guy and find out why they are sequential order. yes, he did explain himself, but you still had your doubts. But you could ask him where he got the bills at so you could check out his story and not end everything in embarassment. B. this is probably not very good either, but still better than arresting the guy. just copy his license plate down as he drives away.
Your Signature (Score:3, Insightful)
Would you mind changing your quote to instead point at the actual views of the administration of our country and not a generally vague and inaccurate statement about the sentiment of all the population? For example,
Current USA Government: the enemy of the free world.
That would be a much more accurate statement and wouldn't malign the large percentage of the US population who's views do not reflect that of our "leaders." There is a significant distinction. Thanks
Re:9/11?! (Score:2, Insightful)
The print shop was not prosecuted under the Canadian Charter but under Ontario Human Rights Act. The courts deal exclusively on constitutional matters. The Ontario Human Rights Commission deal with teh province's own Human Rights Act which govern all business under provincial jurisdiction. The print shop's refusal to offer service is specifically prohibited by the Ontario Human Rights Act and that's the basis on which the Commission ruled. The Court didn't add anything to the law or read in new rights (since they weren't even involved). The Comission ruled based on the explicit language of the act. The print shop owner was wrong in every sense of the word under the Human Rights Act. There is no ambiguity.
The BC teacher case you mentioned is under the jurisdiction of the professional act for Teachers in BC. Again, another provinical piece of legislation independednt from the Charter. His charge was unprofessional conduct and discrimination as described by the provincial act (which does list out sexual orientation) by the professional body he voluntarily joined. As a professional myself (Engineer), your profession can and does hold you to a higher standard than that of a private citizen. If your public statements discredit your profession, that is more than enough grounds for the professional governing body (the College of Teachers in this case) to penalize you.
On a side note, it is starting to grate when people keep saying the courts are undemocratic because they don't rule based on popular opinion. Democarcy does not equal bending to the mob. Democracy implies that everyone is equal and equally protected under the law, i.e. affairs of state follow set rules and not the whims of people a.k.a. rule of law. The Courts will rule based on the laws written by an elected legislature and not by the latest opinion polls. The courts are there to protect the minority from the majority and not the other way around. There is something called the "tyrany of the majority", which seems to be what a lot of people advocate. When that happens, what we have is mob rule and not democracy. I suggest that you pick up a few law text books and understand the foundation of English Common Law. Your arguments would be heck of a lot more effective if you actually know what you're talking about.
Re:Law Enforcement Ahoy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Watching how people treat retail staff and places, it makes me wonder about making people work well-monitored menial-pay gigs in their youth (not unlike mandatory national service) so they would (hopefully) learn about empathy, respect, having to live on low wages-something along those lines. So often, people act like those working manual or retail work are less than human somehow, and fair game for rudeness and contempt.
It may sound naive, but I was raised to believe that a person should not be judged because of the work they do, if it is honest work done well. If a person abuses others by their power and position (Enron management, anyone?)- they deserve contempt- not the guy who collects the trash. At the hospital where I currently work, the director of my service is highly-credentialed - also dissembling, judgmental, biased, and driven primarily by his image. OTOH,a custodian I know on the evening shift is one of the the most pleasant and hard-working people I've known. I know the access he has- he could do amazing damage or theft is he chose to do so. And I'd rather spend an hour with him than five minutes with the director, any day.