Yesterday a
video was posted online of two Winco Loss Prevention (LP) employees detaining a
young girl. She was kicking and screaming and crying as the two LP officers
were trying to get her back into the store. While this was happening a woman was
filming while she and a couple other people excoriated the officers. Comments
included statements such as, you are going to lose your job, I’m posting this
online, the cops are going to come and arrest you, you cannot do this, you are
hurting her, you beat the crap out of her. In the video you can see that the
girl had a scrapped knee but no other injuries were sustained. Toward the end
of the video a police officer arrives and the girl is arrested and charged with
robbery in the 2nd degree.
The video
of the incident went viral. Videos do not go viral without a reason and this
video seems to touch on an important debate going on in our society right now.
On one side you have people like the person behind the camera saying this is
wrong and that Winco has no right to do this. On the other side you have people
saying, you should not steal and she got what she deserved. As a point of
honesty I lean toward the she got what she deserved side of this. So why did
this video in some town in Washington State of a 15 year old girl stealing
candy and getting caught capture so much attention?
The video
speaks to a wide range of issues. It is a mini version of what people see going
on in larger society. One side sees an excessive use of force by people enforcing
the law. They see two adults trying to wrestle a child for simply taking some
candy. One of the guys in the video said he would pay for the candy if it would
make it all stop. They see the girl as a child who is being victimized by these
adults all over candy. They naturally side with the child and see the LP
officers as bad guys.
The other
side see that someone broke the law. The girl is 15 years old, she is old
enough to know that stealing is wrong and still did it. She got caught stealing
and when confronted she refused to give the stolen property back. It does not
matter that she just stole candy, theft is a crime and she got what she
deserved. The LP officers have every right to take the property of their company
back. They see the LP officers in the right and the girl as the bad guy.
Some people
see this as an extension of police brutality. While others see this as an
extension of outrage culture and helicopter parenting. The truth is this girl
was not badly hurt, she was just upset that she was going to be in a lot of trouble
and she knew it. She knew what she did was wrong and she got caught. She
suddenly felt the very real consequences of her actions and understood that
they are not going away any time soon. The people who sided with her empathized
with that and wanted to protect her from it. The people who sided with the LP
officers understand that the girl will suffer a little now but be better off in
the long run. I’ve told you my take on this, what is yours? Were the LP officers’
actions excessive, or was the girl way out of line and brought this on herself?
No comments:
Post a Comment