A Brookyn woman is suing Rite Aid and the city for branding her a shoplifter when a previously purchased item inexplicably activated the pharmacy’s exit gate alarm.
Leah Fishman, 30, said that all her pleas — that store staff or detectives review security cameras, look up payment records or allow her to fetch the old receipt — fell on deaf ears.
“It was awful,” she said of the humiliating arrest one year ago. “It was really, really public and it lasted for hours.”
Fishman, a gilder and painter, recalled making a quick trip to the neighborhood pharmacy a few blocks from her Greenpoint home. She bought some medicine and tried to leave.
But the exit gate beeped and security found in her bag a container of dietary supplements she had purchased a few weeks earlier for about $20, said her lawyer, Jeffrey Rothman.
Store workers refused to verify her claim and instead called the cops.
“When the police came, I was relieved,” Fishman said — but that feeling quickly changed.
“They didn’t listen to a thing she said,” Rothman said of the two officers and two detectives who responded. “It’s though they were a private company working for Rite Aid.”
Appeals to prove her innocence were ignored, and Fishman started crying, according to the lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
“Oh look, she has tears. It won’t help you; you’re still going to jail,” court papers quote a detective as saying.
The put-downs and mocking continued after she was handcuffed and taken to the precinct stationhouse, where she could hear other officers calling her a thief, Fishman said.
“Police behavior was not only irresponsible, it was downright cruel,” said Rothman, who argued that cops should have engaged in “some minimal investigatory activity.”
The ordeal ended when Fishman’s roommate came to the stationhouse with the receipt for the allegedly stolen item. Fishman was let go without charges some three hours after the arrest.
Her suit is asking for unspecified damages.
Rite Aid and the city declined to comment because they have yet to receive the complaint.
Fishman said the Friday afternoon nightmare could have ended up worse.
“If it wasn’t for that minor thing, me not throwing out the receipt,” she said, “I would have been in Central Booking for the weekend.”
Rite Aid just did something similar to us today, even though we had the receipt when we wanted to return some cheap made in China cell phone accessories that did not work. The manager threatened to call the police, so I told him he was full of crap and I was calling the police, which I did. I had the cops come to our home, then the cop went to the store, then to cover their tracks the manager of Rite Aid filed an incident complaint against him because I said we are going to sue him. The embarassed us in front of other customers, a hostile trouble making employee with a history of that egged the whole thing on with the manager, they have been hostile for months because we earned the discount that is hard to get through their membership discount program, or who knows their real motivation. Complete asses!
ReplyDeleteRite Aid has been harassing me and my wife for years and today is the last straw. they accused my wife of stealing today, and even when she showed them the receipt for a return she was returning of their cheap chinese made junk, the manager persisted, told us to wait, said he was checking his records to see if we bought it today, had one excuse after another to embarass us in front of other customers. he threatened to call the police when i finally told him that was enough and I would call the police myself. we had a police officer come to our house to complain and ask him to warn the manager and his employee to stop this nonsense because they have gotten worse over the years. he said he would, that there rite aid had not called the police, but when the cop went there the manager filed a police incident report against us, obviously a tactic to intimidate us. loss prevention called us, Vice President of the region Spencer something called us, and the rhetoric kept ratcheting up as if we were at fault. sure, i called the manager an ass, a jerk, and he certainly is. they treat my wife like garbage and constantly cheat us on the posted price then claim it is a mistake when we always catch them at it. then they act like they are the gestapo and we have to submit to their arrogant accusations and public embarassment and that we shouldn't tell them to go to hell for being such asses. thank god my wife had the receipt for the return we were doing, or they would certainly have falsely arrested her. what in the hell is wrong with these people? question: how about drug testing store employers AND managers when they do crazy krap like this!?
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