This letter was sent to the Meijer Corporation officers listed below. It has been edited for clarity.
To the President, Vice President or Director of Human Resources:
On Thursday August 21, 2008 at approximately 5:00 p.m., I David Bliss decided to stop into your retail business on Conant Street in Maumee, Ohio, to purchase several of your sale items that were listed in your weekly flyer.
While filling my cart with sale items that I intended on purchasing for my wife and three daughters I was falsely accused by your loss prevention employees (one black male and one while female) of trying to remove one radar detector holding the approximate value of $100.00.
While I was heading to the registers to make my purchase I realized that I had left my checkbook in my vehicle and spoke with one of your employees at the front door, asking him if it was all right to station my cart by the entrance door while I ran to my vehicle and retrieve my check book. After the elderly man gave me the clearance I began exiting and was immediately stopped by two loss prevention employees who began accusing me of removing an item that was not paid for.
Shocking Accusation
I was utterly shocked by these accusations because I had committed no crime of the sort, and informed them I was only running to my vehicle to retrieve my personal checkbook. The two loss preventions employees then became irate with me, insisting that I follow them to the office.
This uncalled for commotion began shocking other customers who were visiting your business that is when I immediately stopped and held my position inside your store. I placed my hands above my head and gave permission to your loss prevention to perform a pat down through all my pockets at free will and offered to empty my pockets in front of everyone.
The black male employee became very irate towards me and I decided to go ahead and follow him to your office. While in route to the office I observed all of your customers staring at the spectacle we were creating, in utter shock, because I also was a Security Officer in uniform for another large business firm.
Customer Harassment
At this time I stopped and turned back towards the exit door and stated to your loss prevention that “I never removed anything from this business and due to the load occurrence I want to take this outside.” The loss prevention employee refused to follow my request, I then stated to them that “this is terrible and I will never shop at a Meijer’s Store again and I will pass this issue on to several other customers.”
Once I decided to exit, your employee contacted the Maumee Police Department and began making unruly threats towards me. I turned back and made sure that I gave your loss prevention employees my full name, make and model of my vehicle and my license plates to turn over to Maumee Police.
Radar Detector Missing
These false accusations all occurred because I was selecting cereal that was on sale at 5 for $9.00, when I found an empty plastic radar detector case behind a box of Frosted Flakes. A previous customer had apparently unlawfully removed it.
I picked up the empty container and was looking the package over deciding whether or not to deliver it up front to the cashier while I was checking out. As I considered turning the package in I decided that no, if I would turn this package in, I would possibly become a suspect. So, I threw the package back on the shelf where I found it and preceded towards the checkout.
These false accusations were shocking and now I have charges filed against me with the Maumee Police Department and your business. I deal with the Maumee Police Department on a weekly basis because after I finished my career at Northwest State as a Peace Officer I decided to help protect and serve our local businesses and the patrons who are honest.
While I was on my way home I notified my local police department here in Wauseon and discussed this entire issue with them, which placed them in utter shock. Then I contacted Jason Ribby who was a loss prevention employee for Meijer’s for over 10-years and discussed this issue with him.
No Evidence
When I explained the issue to Mr. Ribby he immediately questioned, “who was the employee whom accused you of this” when I gave the description of your employee to Mr. Ribby he knew immediately who I was talking about and then stated, “That guy has falsely accused several customers before and I am surprised that Meijer’s still has him employed.”
This entire ordeal was so embarrassing because I purchase most of my groceries from your business due to your outstanding sales promotions, not found elsewhere.
I am now being forced to appear in court for the first charges that I have ever faced in my 42-years, and after this court hearing takes place with my attorney Mark Powers of Wauseon Ohio, I have decided to file my own charges against Meijer’s and the two employees for wrongful accusations involving retail fraud.
Once this finishes in court and if I am wrongfully accused over this matter, I will be contacting Toledo 11 News, Channel 13 as well as Fox News, explaining what took place at the Maumee Meijer’s Store.
I questioned the Maumee Officer Mr. York when I was forced to drive 30-miles back to the Maumee Police Department, if they actually saw me on Meijer’s security videos unlawfully remove any items with any knife or sharp object and place it or them in my pocket.
Officer York stated to me that after viewing the videos, “No, he did not but Meijer’s insist on filing charges against you and I must follow threw with them.”
If this issue is allowed to continue and I lose my positions as a Public Safety Officer and suffer the wrongful charges I will be ordering a polygraph exam through the local Police Departments.
This is the first time, in my life that I have ever been accused of committing any crime. I request that you make your loss prevention employee read the state ORC code §2913.02 in order to understand the full extent of theft.
I hope to hear back from you very soon over this issue and if I do not hear back then I know that you will proceed with you’re hearing on September 8, 2008 at 10:00 a.m.
Sincerely
David B. Bliss
This was sent to me from a 10-year Loss Prevention employee at Meijers who quit due to their ways of handling customers, please forgive me for the language he put in here but I wanted to share this with you and didn’t want to take anything out of it.
David
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It appears to me that the Store Detective that stopped you is trying to cover his ass because he knew that he made a bad stop. By filing charges on you he can cover his ass and state that you refused to come back with him to keep him out of trouble.
Meijer has two forms of bad stops like I told you during the last conversation, the first being a “Less then Serious” and the second being “Serious”. Providing that nothing has changed since the time I was there, the first one is when you have a good case and miss a dump resulting in the suspect not having anything when you detain them. The punishment for this is relatively nothing for the stopping detective, and usually results in a write up in his/her file lasting for 3 months, it is then discarded.
The “serious” bad stop however is when the detective sees basically nothing and stops you without having all the facts, this is what happened in your case. The punishment for a bad stop could be termination for the detective and stays in his / her file active forever.
It appears to me that the person who stopped you is trying to avoid being fired so he is covering his ass by filing a police report and basically stating that you refused to enter the store and surrender the property. I know that this is not what you want to hear, but if you would have went back into the store with them and was checked in the office, then things would definitely be more in your favor at this point because the whole thing would be on video.
Now, here is what is in your favor! Meijer has a full hands on policy, with a restraint matrix that must be followed in every apprehension situation. There are 4 levels of resistance with an authorized use of force that escalates or de-esculataes as a person becomes more or less compliant.
My question is this, according to the restraint matrix level 2 is escape, escape authorizes the detaining detective to go hands on using different techniques including handcuffing. If you left and did not come back with him, why did he not handcuff you or try to restrain you….my guess is because he knew he screwed up!
Keep me posted
Jason