No Jail Time for the Black Friday Walmart Pepper Spray Xbox 360 Mom?
Pepper spray in the face? It must be Christmastime!
Just in time for the holidays, an unnamed California woman assaulted other shoppers with pepper spray, so she could buy an Xbox 360 at half-price. At least 20 people were injured.
After she pepper sprayed the crowd, she went to the check-out line, paid for the item and left the store. The female assailant has since come forward and turned herself in to the Los Angeles police. However, the LAPD are trying to decide if they should press charges against the woman. Seriously, WTF?!
According to the Los Angeles Times:
Investigators declined to speculate Saturday whether the woman, described only as a Latina in her 30s, brandished the spray because she felt threatened by the crowd of jostling shoppers or to gain an advantage so she could grab an Xbox game console that was on sale.
Who cares if she felt threatened by the crowd of “jostling shoppers?” She’s a woman. She was a scare-werd. Therefore, what? She’s not responsible for her actions? Baloney.
If you don’t want to be jostled or can’t handle the press of a large crowd, then don’t go shopping on the busiest shopping day of the year. I know I’m using logic and that some domestic violence organizations think the use of logic is abuse, but I refuse to drink that particular batch of kool-aid.
On what planet is it okay for anyone, male or female, to assault and injure others and not face criminal charges? If mommy doesn’t want to spend Christmas in jail, then she shouldn’t pepper spray innocent people so she can obtain a mass-produced electronic device of which there is no shortage.
And why are neither the police nor the press releasing this woman’s name? Had a man committed the same offense, his name and photo would be plastered all over every news outlet.
Here’s to hoping this woman, who committed assault, gets more than counseling as a “consequence.”
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17 Responses to “No Jail Time for the Black Friday Walmart Pepper Spray Xbox 360 Mom?”
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As usual, reverse the roles when in doubt. If a man had done this, there would be no hesitation about filing charges. Geez!
Exactly, jackinthebox, and thank you for registering with S4M. Welcome!
Hi Dr. T:
I think the very fact that she thought ahead to take her pepper spray with her explains it all. If I thought that I was going some place where I would be harmed, then I wouldn’t go. I wouldn’t think, Damn, I have to take my pepper spray (not that I own any) with me. She couldn’t have been too rattled either because she took the time to pay for her items and then left.
Excellent points, BE. Bringing the pepper spray seems to indicate a level of premeditation. And, yeah, if she was feeling that “threatened,” she would have fled the scene rather than paying for the item and sauntering out of the store. I think she turned herself in when she realized the police had her on tape and it was only a matter of time before they brought her in for questioning.
I read that they called her a “Competitive Shopper”. The abuse industry will probably pick that one up and make her a new kind of victim. Maybe the new DSM will include it too and say that it isn’t her fault because Santa didn’t stop at her house or leave her as many toys as the other kids got.
Expect a reality “competition” show to be broadcast all over cable TV in time for next Thanksgiving.
I work retail at this moment – UGH – and i’ve worked retail for the last year and a half. I was the Cashier Supervisor at a national chain, but had to step down because i got sick of dealing with people and the stress it was causing me. I’m here to tell you that at least 80% of the high-conflict people that i’ve had to deal with have been female. I came into work today and another employee told me that one woman came in today and asked for something that we were sold out of. We told her we were sold out and that the entire STATE was sold out. In her disgust she literally threw the rest of her items and they scattered all over the floor.
Are you serious??!!??!! good gracious get over it!!! the entire state is sold out! perhaps you weren’t the only who realized what you wanted to buy was a great deal, but that all of the others were smarter than you to get to the item first. on my shift i’ve had several men come in and ask about the same item. i told them we were sold out and every single one of them shrugged their shoulders, thanked me for checking or at least answering their question. 99% of the men who shop understand that things happen, and it is what it is. Life goes on. Some women are a different story. And when you use logic on them it sets them off. “I’m sorry ma’am, there’s nothing we can do about this”. AAAAARRRRGGHH! The louder she screams and the more irate she gets means that the world is supposed to stop moving. And yet (as most men understand), life goes on. No matter how pissed off she is, life goes on.
ANYONE using pepper spray should be brought up on charges. I have my disgust at Christmas and think its gotten way out of hand. But it doesn’t matter how commercial it’s gotten. It doesn’t matter that some wanted to find “the perfect gift” (UGH – gag, whatever happened to the thought) and it doesn’t matter how great of a deal. Using pepper spray is violent… period!! it’s even more disgusting that people are wringing their hands about whether to press charges. This SHOULD be an easy decision. The fact that it isn’t is startling. How about sending a message to everyone – men and women – that this kind of stupidity is wrong and will not be tolerated. But sadly, no…
Have also worked retail/customer service gigs. The assholes were almost always women. The one time a guy was an asshole, his wife was with, and she was far, far worse. Yelling and carrying on about something I had no power to correct for, literally, a acouple hours.
I had another incident in spring where we had this terrific sale. Corporate actually called me because a customer complained that we were out of an item. Same story, nobody in the entire state had any. The woman from Corporate starts going off on me about this being poor customer service (you’ll find out why). I asked her what exactly she expected me to do. We don’t have them. Nobody in the state has them. I told she had access to all of this information before she even made the phone call to our store. Going off on me doesn’t change any of this. Its not poor customer service if there’s literally nothing we can do about it. Sometimes things sell out and the customer is just gonna have to be disappointed. She told me the customer was on the other line, is upset about the situation, and asked if i would be willing to talk to her about it. I told her no would not be willing. You called me. You are from corporate. You make a good deal of money dealing with these things. And you got yourself into this by going off on me for something that i have no control over. You can therefore be a big girl and talk to her yourself. What exactly is she gonna do? Not shop here? Oh no… not that!!!
I think anyone who is doubting whether or not to file charges needs to experience being pepper sprayed (again, if necessary) to be reminded that it is a weapon and not a “food product” as claimed by Fox News.
I could believe the “threatened” bit, if she’d fled, or done pretty much anything besides calmly purchase an xbox. After all, some guy collapsed and died elsewhere, and the other shoppers just climbed over him on their way to the fantastic low prices.
On the other hand, going shopping for high-demand items on black friday is kind of like going to a heavy metal show – everybody knows beforehand you’ll get roughed up a bit if you’re anywhere near the mosh pit.
…Actually, strike that last bit. There’s always at least one teeny tiny woman at the shows that insists on standing at the edge of the pit, and somehow thinks the people moshing will magically avoid her. These women are invariably shocked when they get slammed.
Pepper spray as a ‘food product’? Let’s serve some up, you go first. And – not to pick nits, but… if she actually sprayed the crowd, it’s battery, in addition to assault.
I hope they throw the book at her.
Wall Mart & most other stores use recorded video as a matter of routine, so its safe to assume that whatever happened was videotaped, probably from two or more angles.
Clearly, in a normal shopping situations pepper spraying would be unacceptable (& “pepper spray” typically uses mace & other chemical irritants besides concentrated pepper, though what’s involved varies by manufacturer).
This was not, apparently, a “normal” shopping situation by any criteria including Black Friday mayhem standards:
One of the P.Spray victims is quoted in the press as blaming the store for not controlling the crowds–that’s telling by itself as he is not quoted as blaming the P.Spray perpetrator, which one would expect if the spraying was an unresonable reaction to events. Another shopper who didn’t know of the spray incident is quoted as saying she’d never seen things so crazy. Also, consider the quote: “Employees attempted ["attempted" suggests the attempt(s) was(were) unsuccessful] to hold back the scrum of shoppers and pick up merchandise even as customers trampled the video games and DVDs strewn on the floor.” All that points to a particularly chaotic situation. See: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/at-wal-mart-pepper-spray-attack-triggered-chaos-screaming.html
In other words, this may very well have been a very extreme event in which the un/reasonableness of the P.Spraying was by no means clear. She turned herself in, voluntarily, which indicates some standard of civility…the police let her go…and we may yet be reading reports of charges being filed against someone that deserved getting sprayed.
And bringing Pepper Spray doesn’t suggest premeditation by any stretch of the imagination. Many people carry the stuff on the car keychain ALL THE TIME. When I lived in that area (the nicer, even “affluent,” parts of LA County) I & my wife routinely carried Pepper Spray (& sometimes hand-held tasers); & keep spray in the car, just in case (this was mostly inconjunction with her late-night hours at a hospital, none of which have “safe” area parking at night (even with standing security for escorting employees). The number of incidents in which this might come in handy is surprising…though we’ve, so far, never needed it. Nor have I needed my handgun (which I’ve also routinely carried, with no premeditation, legally, for years).
I do enjoy this blog…but…would hope that the “when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail” mentality doesn’t skew rationality.
Hi Ken,
If she was so threatened and distraught by the crowd, it stands to reason she would have been too incapacitated to calmly pay for her purchase and leave. If I were feeling threatened and feared for my life, I’d have fled the scene without completing my purchase, but maybe that’s just me and my survival instinct.
It’s a fair point that many people carry pepper spray. However, it’s my opinion that the woman didn’t come forward as a matter of civility, but because it was only a matter of time before the police came looking for her after reviewing the security video. Or maybe I’m wrong.
In any event, I still wonder if the police would even need to mull this over if the “competitive shopper” (who knew shopping was a competitive “sport?”) had been male.
Dr. P.
You may well be correct. But so often addtional facts come out that severely alter the scenario we thought we understood.
What I noticed: The first, or one of the first (early am–a couple hours after the incident itself), reports from that area conveyed the incident as occurring when a crowd began to push into an aisle early, and THEN [possibly] she began spraying pepper. The crowd was reported as knocking over displays, trampling merchandise, etc. This commenced a few minutes before the offical sale was to begin. In such a situation a person caught up in the chaos might or might not be ‘threatend’ or ‘fearful’ (and if so possibly only to a minor degree). In response, out of fear/feeling of threat…or….as a civic duty one might spray the air to ward off/subdue the chaos. Frankly, I could see myself doing somehting like that in some situations…including, or especially, if I was aiding someone else that might be in a more vulnerable position.
Subsequent press reports downplayed–or outright misrepresented–the crowd density; and, asserted the ‘sprayer’ was engaged in “competitive shopping” as if that was/is an established tactic. This is in contrast to the first report that described “competitive shopping” as a third party’s speculative, and somewhat whimsical, adjective (or so it seemed to me).
In other words, the first reporting conveyed a number of points & other patterns (noted in my earlier note) suggestive of a number of possibilities, not all bad on her part. Later reports were more sensational & distorted in a manner that consistently made the spraying seem more problematic (and a good reason to always be specultive of the press — recall that S-Kahn “rape” in N. York recently…where it seems pretty clear that some intimate encounter did occur….but…after all the facts came out it looked much more like the “victim” planned & tried to exploit the situation for profit…so much so the prosecutors had to drop the case due to her unreliabilty, lies, etc.).
It seems like a typical human response–with time we recall the high points of a stressful situation and the more subtle, and often truly significant, peripheral factors are forgotten.
My point there is very closely related to a remark you made about “reality testing” in another blog essay (i.e. absent truly objective facts one needs to “reality test” or at least leave room for doubt regarding the overt & implied assertions made in the press)…and….a comment I made somewhere in a remark that the real male victims are well-served to record things just to ensure their recollections will be accurate–because it is a sure thing that everybody, even the good guys in the white hats, will have some distorted/false recollections. We’re all human subject to the same frailties.
Basically, I don’t like jumpting to conclusions — too often the “obvious” wasn’t even true (recall the Innocence Project & DNA exonerations as a sad/happy analogy). There was/is a sort of legal documentary that presented the event from the perspective of the prosecution, then the defense — and watching/hearing only one side left one with good facts & a seemingly unassailable conclusion every time…even though one of those “unassailable” conclusions was inevitably wrong. Its always prudent to “hedge one’s bets.”
Chances are iffy she sprayed for reasonable (even if debatable) reasons such as in response to an overzealous crowd reaction (vs. initiating that reaction)…but it might have been reasonable & there are indicators that it was (and wasn’t). And you’re probably correct about why she came forward, regardless of the un/reasonableness of the motive(s) for spraying. But until all the facts are in, we really do not/cannot know….and my opinion is to hedge one’s assertions, just in case.
If she did spray out of selfish self-interest, I’d bet many of the victims, perhaps most, are women (under the chauvinistic hypothesis that most shoppers were likely women there)…in such case this would have been to a significant woman-on-women assault. I suspect the police wouldn’t give the male vs. female consideration as much weight — which raises another corollary: do people treat same-gender violence differently…is it “ok” for two of the same gender to fight, does male-on-male result in greater law enforcment intervention than female-on-female? I have no idea…but this ["stream of consciousness"] thought makes me wonder if social stereotyping on interpersonal abuse/violance are greater than the double-standard of female-on-male & vice versa. Knowing & appreciating those other stereotypes (assuming they’re there) might be helpful in putting abuse situations of all types in better context. Just a [first-draft] thought…
Recap & update:
The earliest report conveyed a sense of justification–at least a possibility the spraying might have been justified, subsequent reports were sensationalized, even distorted (with distortions increasing with shorter articles). Nov 25th reports often asserted the P. Sprayer actually purchased items/X-box & still managed to escape.
Fox New reports on Nov 26, via an “updated” story http://www.fox8live.com/news/local/story/Alleged-Black-Friday-pepper-spraying-shopper/JB_LkOva_UCe3iaQ5ALZHQ.cspx?rss=2085 :
- Not known if she purchased an X-box (per this story updated on Nov 26th, the day after the numerous sensational reports were published)
- It will be at least two days before an arrest might be made, pending further witness interviews (putting an arrest no earlier than Nov 28, per this estimate)
Chicago Tribune reports that KTLA (Los Angeles news station) reports on NOV 29th — the day one would now expect an arrest to occur (see: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ktla-black-friday-pepper-spray,0,2110163.story):
“POLICE SAY A WOMAN ACCUSED OF ATTACKING SHOPPERS WITH PEPPER SPRAY INSIDE A WALMART ON BLACK FRIDAY MAY HAVE ACTED IN SELF-DEFENSE.” [emphasis in capitals added]
[NOTE: That’s a direct contradiction to a remark made by some LA Police Lt. who asserted, per the press in a number of articles, the spraying was a tactical maneuver of “competitive shopping” applied to gain some shopping advantage]
Further, the article states: “”There was a stampede at Walmart from people getting Xbox games for half off,” he said. “There was no control. People were getting stampeded and trampled. There were people screaming, yelling that they were being trampled or crushed.”" THAT bit aligns with the very earliest reports that conveyed more detail & more objectivity as the need to out-sensationalize competing news media hadn’t time to develop.
IF that had been clearly reported right at the outset this blog essay & all its comments likely would never have been inspired.
So, maybe she did a number of people a real service….IF she acted “reasonably” or even “understandably” (though some will always disagree) you can be sure you won’t be seeing headline news about that — subsequent stories will pretty much always be more sensational, gaining reader attention is how this information source gets paid. In other words, reader beware.
One can never go wrong by prefacing remarks based on press reports (especially early press reports) with statements such as, “Assuming the details reported are accurate & complete….,” etc. Press reports warrant “reality testing” …. and ironically for most of us that comes from the same press, we typically just have to wait for it.
You’d think that the Police Chiefs and Police Unions would be more vocal about this kind of stuff. Oh well, they’re just doing their job so we can just forget that they have any sort of moral responsibility.
This is a no brainer. Arrest the nutty bitch. Disorderly Conduct fits this. Any store employee could sign a complaint and I’m pretty sure CA has some law to cover use of pepper spray on or in a crowd.
LAPD will (probably) sit on the case until the publicity dies off and quietly charge her with something. If she is on probation / parole etc. easier to PTR (Petition to Revoke Probation) her and add the new charges. Waiting is not necessarily bad, though it is frustrating.