Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 13:03:47 -0400 (EDT) From: "B. Sue Blair" To: poetry@ans.net Subject: rant: Lord & Taylor Lord and Taylor breaks the silence! Diatribe from Lord & Taylor to the protestors on the street, the shoplifter, and his child: Could you people please move along if you're not going to buy anything? Doesn't anyone in Detroit work for a living any more? Or is _everyone_ on welfare or shoplifting? When we say that we are Lord & Taylor, we mean just that. We are God and if you steal from us, you die. We're not into waiting around for your karma to catch up with you years later, we are into instant gratification. If we can crush your windpipe while you have our stolen goods held against your skin, we are righteous and claim your energy for ours. the north sign's neon flows more efficiently after a fix If you are an animal and live your life like one, then is it not fitting that you should be strangled with the stinking collar of a cur? We see the removal of your carcass from the planet as a net plus for all concerned, and only regret that we were not able to eliminate your wife and child as well since they are clearly contaminated with your taint. The family that steals together, stays together so it would be appropriate for them to join you, sir Why did you have a child that you were going to abuse, neglect, teach the ways of evil, and then loose upon the rest of us? Come back and steal from us again little one, we have a collar of justice in Just Your Size dangling from the end of a pole. Clean-up in aisle four ---------------------- background: Original article: Security guard charged in mall death By Jim Suhr / Associated Press DETROIT -- A private security guard was charged Thursday with involuntary manslaughter in the suffocation death of a man last month outside a Dearborn department store. The charge against Dennis Richardson, a guard for the Lord & Taylor store at Fairlane Town Center, came a day after thousands of protesters led by the Rev. Al Sharpton rallied outside the store, suggesting the June 22 death of Frederick Finley had racial overtones. Richardson is black, as was Finley. Finley was in the Lord & Taylor store with friends and family when surveillance cameras allegedly recorded some members of the group shoplifting. Prosecutors said in a statement that while in the store, Finley's 11-year-old stepdaughter removed a bracelet from a counter and left the store without paying for it. Outside, security workers tried to question the girl before Finley intervened, prosecutors said. During an ensuing confrontation with Finley, Richardson used a neck hold to subdue the Detroit man, ultimately causing his death, the statement said. "Under all the circumstances, the duration and amount of force used by Richardson was excessive, and probable cause clearly exists" for the involuntary manslaughter count, Prosecutor John D. O'Hair said in the statement. Prosecutors did not return several telephone messages Thursday. Dearborn police Inspector Dan Wach declined to comment on the charges, saying the prosecutors' statement spoke for itself. Attorney Geoffrey Fieger, who represents Finley's family, said he believed a second-degree murder charge would have been more appropriate. "Mr. Richardson didn't just put him in a choke hold. Mr. Richardson put a chain around Mr. Finley's neck and pulled it until he crushed his trachea," Fieger told Detroit radio station WWJ. The manslaughter count carries a possible 15 years in prison and a $7,500 fine. In the statement, prosecutors said information that other security guards at Lord & Taylor perhaps contributed to Finley's death "has been carefully considered but cannot be substantiated at this time." Fieger said he believed O'Hair still might bring charges against a second Lord & Taylor guard who he said stood or knelt on Finley's back while Richardson was choking him. During Wednesday's Sharpton-led rally, a crowd chanted "No justice, no profits, no justice, no peace" while gathered on the lot outside the store. Police estimated the crowd at between 5,000 and 10,000, probably closer to 7,000. The doors near the spot where Finley died were blocked by police barricades. Activists who organized Wednesday's protest accused the store of having black security workers scrutinize minority shoppers to avoid the appearance of discrimination or racial profiling. "It takes racism to a new, clandestine level in corporate culture," the Rev. Horace Sheffield, a Detroit pastor said before the rally he organized. "Racism can be black-on-black if white folk have staged this to be black-on-black. I know that if I'm a company with a white loss-prevention officer and if I apprehend a black individual and something happens, it looks far worse." Lord & Taylor spokeswoman LaVelle Olexa declined to discuss Finley's death or the protest, citing the police investigation and a $600 million lawsuit by the man's family against the store's parent company, May Department Stores. Richardson was expected to be arraigned Friday.