🚀 go-pugleaf

     I am posting the following account on behalf of my wife, who, having
a real job, is without Internet access. Here is her story...

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     On the morning of November 11, 1993, I went to the Meijer store in
Hilliard, Ohio, to do some Christmas shopping. At the checkout terminal the
cashier seemed to be having some difficultly with the barcode scanner; it
was entering some items twice, and these double entries had to be manually
voided by the cashier. After all this was finally sorted out, I paid the
total and started to leave the store.
     Just as I was pushing the shopping cart out the door, two very rude
plain-clothes security guards blocked my exit, and demanded that I come with
them. At this point I considered myself to be under arrest, and remembering
Meijer's propensity to violence, thought it best not to resist. (Some of you
may remember the incident with Leroy Spangler, who had his neck broken by
Meijer's security.) I asked several times what the problem was, and eventually
was told I was "leaving the store without paying for my merchandise." I showed
them a receipt, but they still insisted I come with them. After being escorted
down the hall to a small room, they changed their accusation. A third person
entered the room, and while shaking a video cassette in my face, accused me
of collaborating with the cashier to defraud the store! They had another hushed
conference in the hall, then came back in and told me they had made a mistake,
and I was free to go.
     On my way out of that store I stopped just long enough to return all the
purchases I had just made. I will never again set foot in any Meijer store.

Mary Bertsch

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     [The arrogance and stupidity of these Meijer cops is truly amazing. A
simple hardware problem at a point-of-sale terminal became, in their minds, a
criminal conspiracy worthy of their heavy-handed storm trooper tactics. One
would think that, after paralyzing Mr. Spangler, they might have lightened up a
bit. Apparently this is not the case, they still assume all their customers are
criminals. I can only hope they change their policies before another innocent
shopper is severely injured by these people. -Steve]