Posted on 12/13/2012 11:45:40 AM PST by servo1969
NEWTON, Mass. —
A local family says a language barrier may have resulted in police using a Taser on a woman after she tried to buy too many iPhones at a local mall. Police, however, say the incident isn't that clear cut.
Xiaojie Li, of Newton, said she is embarrassed by Monday's Pheasant Lane Mall in New Hampshire incident.
"So my mom says she don't know why they called the police, because she doesn't understand what they are talking about," her 12-year-old daughter Jiao Jay said.
Jay said her mother bought two iPhones last Friday, and was told that was the limit. When she took video of others she claimed were buying more, the store manager asked her to leave.
The confrontation involving the Taser happened when Li went to the store on Monday to pick up two iPhones she ordered online.
"The management of the store asked us to have her removed. The officer approached her, told her she wasn't welcome in the store, and she refused to leave," Nashua Police Capt. Bruce Hansen said.
Police say the store had issued a stay-away order against Li.
"Two days prior to that, she had been asked to leave the store by store personnel for doing something that they didn't want," Hansen said, referring to Li's photographing other customers in the store.
A video posted on YouTube shows Li and police officers on the floor outside the Apple store at the Nashua mall. The crackle of the Taser and Li's screams can be heard on the video.
"She was scared, she didn't understand," said John Hugo, who said he was Li's fiance'. "I was outraged. You go into a store, and you end up getting brutalized by the police."
Hansen said the woman had been resisting arrest for about 15 minutes before a second officer arrived at the scene.
"So then the police took my mom's phone and tried to take my mom's bag. And my mom tried to ask them why, and they just threw her to the ground," Jay said.
The 44-year-old mother of two was charged with trespassing and resisting arrest.
"My mom feel really upset with what they did," Jay said.
Nashua police see the situation differently.
"She wasn't mistreated in any way. If she left the store when she was told to leave the store, it would've been done at that. She was told she was under arrest after repeatedly being told to leave the store. She didn't submit to the arrest. The officer used the Taser on her to get her to submit to the arrest," Hansen said.
According to Nashua police policy, Tasers may be used "when the subject has signaled his/her intention to actively resist arrest in an aggressive, hostile manner or when a need arises to incapacitate a dangerous, combative, or high risk subject where other use of force techniques exposes the officer, the subject or the public to unnecessary danger, or when other force techniques have been or may be ineffective."
The policy continues, "The weapon is a level of force normally required to overcome passive, defensive, or offensive resistance that is intended as an act of overt aggression toward the officer where an individual refuses to comply with verbal instructions."
Li will be in court in January.
Perhaps she grew up as the daughter of some Party official and thought cops were servants whose orders did not apply to her?
She was literate enough to use the internet. I hope she gets a refund.
as to getting folks assimilated and educated as to ‘our ways’,, Good Luck.
Was communicating that vital to this incident that a weapon had to be used? frankly, I’m more concerned over the use of the taser. them things are deadly in more than a few cases yet we’re told it beats using a billy club.. Oh well..
I live in the bay area where the more iphones one buys , the better for the local economy and China’s too. strange world, huh?
You might be on to something with that observation...
Watch this:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=938_1355379584
Good grief. The store didn’t taser anyone. The police tasered her outside of the store. And not because she “bought too many iPhones”, she resisted arrest.
The folks in the store, in every case I’ve seen, are extremely professional with the horde of sometimes obnoxious jerks who hound them nearly every morning. As I said, I don’t know if this woman was part of the usual crowd. But I’ve seen the crowd in action and I have little sympathy for them.
Well, your suspicion is wrong in this case. The store sells tons of stuff every day to foreigners. The daily quota policy is well known and seems to be enforced fairly. They DON’T ask people to leave if they look foreign, they DON’T refuse to sell to foreigners, and they DON’T reserve stock for any particular group. If you reserve ahead of time online, you can pick up what you’ve reserved when it arrives. If you walk in off the street, they have a daily limit.
I don’t know what this woman did to get removed, but I guess it was well beyond typical angry customer stuff. I’ve seen the staff handle upset customers a time or two, without incident.
Do you think a store should allow a disruptive customer to remain in the premises indefinitely, making the staff and the other customers miserable? Should a store be prohibited from asking someone to leave? When the staff asked her to leave, she should have gone. When the police told her to leave, she really should have gone.
Apple warranties differ from place to place ~ China is one of those places they don't cover ~ but the Chines manufactur Apple products.
BTW, you call the cops, no matter what happens, you have a moral responsibility for your own call.
“That’s the free market. F that store.”
The free market requires a willing buyer and a willing seller. The store was willing to sell her two phones, if we believe the story. (Dunno if we SHOULD believe the story, since it’s under a pretty misleading headline.) After she caused trouble, the store wasn’t willing to do business with her and asked her to leave. That’s the free market too.
Maybe she should shop in a different store. There are at least 3 Apple stores closer to her home than the one she was causing trouble at.
Yep! F that store.
Please share. What does she do that is so funny? She would never be doing anything unprofessional or illegal, would she?
Please provide some evidence for this “well-known” Apple policy. I can’t find it. I’ve learned that a lot of “well-known” stuff isn’t actually true.
Your claim assumes the staff in the store has some way to know where customers come from. They’ve never asked me any questions about that. They’ve never asked for ID. I’ve seen this store sell stacks of popular items — literally more than a person could carry — to “foreign looking” customers.
Your claim contradicts several years of my personal experience to the contrary, so forgive me if I’m skeptical.
So the STORE issued a stay away order? Is that legal? Could the store per se issue a stay away order for all blacks or long haired teenagers???
It is Apple after all...
BTW, check with your boss.
Out of curiosity, I just checked Apple’s China web store. They do sell iPhones there, and they do have warranty coverage. I don’t read Chinese so I can’t understand the details. But there’s enough English in the web page for me to figure out the basics.
http://www.apple.com.cn/support/products/iphone.html
Cop went for her bag ~ no cultural misunderstanding there. TSA agents get caught doing that all the time ~ whatever new merchandise you have in there is going to be gone.
The picture taking bothered the store management.
She appears to have gone home and ordered two more phones over the internet deliverable from that store. She went to get those i-phones. The manager refused to sell them to her.
I suspect that was pretty close to the manager's last day in charge of that store.
Hmm. Seems like a silly premise to me.
Store asks a particular, disruptive person to leave and not return. And you’re comparing that to the hypothetical case of a store excluding all blacks or long haired teenagers. Sorry, I don’t see the connection.
I think you're funny.
“Check with my boss”? About what? Do you want me to ask him to confirm your “well known” facts? He’s not much interested in Apple policies, so I doubt he has an opinion.
If credit cards identify foreigners, I guess that weakens your argument. The store sells to lots of foreigners, and from what you claim I guess they know they are foreigners.
You probably don't remember it but about 12 years ago there were some truly great deals on printers manufactured in China ~ they arrived on a ship in Seattle and before anyone realized it all the major computer vendors were selling them.
Alas, they had proprietary design slots for the ink cartridges, and the only place you could get the cartridges was Japan ~ in reality these tens of thousands of printers were not designed for the North American market. Even the brochures inside were in Japanese, and the 15 language instruction booklet was not really adequate to tell you what to do when you ran out of ink cartridges.
Gee, so how'd I know about that one? Well, had my Chinese secretary (who also reads and writes Japanese) translate the brochure for one thing, and then made some calls. BTW, these things had NO warranty! Not here anyway. They offered to send us print cartridges at the very high Japanese domestic price PLUS shipping!
This warranty/warrantless situation is not a laughing matter for customers who get the wrong stuff in the wrong place. Each company has different ways of protecting itself. With Apple it is a common occurrence for visiting Chinese customers to try to buy Apple products in the US ~ for, I'd imagine, the cachet of "look, this one is from America" ~ they really don't care if the things work, and if they don't, they can get them hacked TO WORK back home a lot cheaper than here.
That ain’t funny, chuckles.
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