NOTHING™
What
You've Been
Looking For!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
NOTHING™
|
Sign
up for updates
|
Talk about trespassing,
here's a case that crosses the line By AL MASCITTI If you see any of the four state police troopers stationed at Christiana Mall throughout the Christmas shopping season, be sure to say hello. After all, you're paying them. Under a pilot program dubbed "Operation Cooperation," four troopers from the Odessa barracks - on-duty troopers on the state payroll, not off-duty officers working for overtime from the mall - will patrol the state's biggest and busiest mall through Dec. 31. And, judging by an incident last week in which four women were arrested for trespassing, the mall intends to use them as it sees fit. Christiana Mall, recently purchased by a Chicago-based outfit called General Growth Properties, has its own in-house security force, and it routinely hires off-duty police officers to help out. The on-duty police, according to state police spokes man Lt. Joseph P. Aviola Jr., are there to prevent crime by increasing visibility and processing arrests faster at the mall substation. The program makes a certain amount of sense. The vast majority of the mall's 6,200-plus parking spaces will be filled for the rest of the month, making it a natural destination for petty criminals looking for victims. The first day of the program, police arrested 20 people for crimes ranging from identity theft to shoplifting. Unfortunately, the criminal trespassing charges against the four Newark women are so dubious that it calls into question the entire philosophy behind Operation Cooperation. The nefarious outlaws were three sisters and a friend who visited the mall to promote "Buy Nothing Day," an anti-consumeristic cause that even the perpetrators treated as something goofy. They took along a video camera and some literature they gave to anyone who expressed an interest. This ran afoul of two company polices, said Christiana Mall spokeswoman Patty Schultz - no video cameras (this applies to media, too), and no solicitation. Aviola said Operation Cooperation is a national program designed to promote cooperation between police and private security forces. "If it's successful, we would like to expand it," he said. I have a better idea - let's don't. There's a reason for keeping the forces separate - private security forces, unlike the police, are not accountable to the public. Christiana Mall, for example, refused to even say how large its in-house security force is. "That's considered proprietary information," Schultz said. The mall was within
its rights to have the women arrested. It is private But as logical as Operation Cooperation might seem, there's something chilling about wielding the power of the state, in the form of police, according to the arbitrary rules of a corporation that has no obligation to obey such niceties as the U.S. Constitution, which would have protected the "trespassers" had they been on public property. And since the public is paying those police salaries, I suggest they spend their time making routine patrols only in places open to the public - even those who dare to make fun of shopping. Copyright © 2004, The News Journal Reprinted with permission of The News Journal |
