There's places where a phone won't help you at all. On the other hand, just screaming will. Screaming, like not yelling, screaming. Helped me out exactly three weeks ago today, when I was getting coercively shepherded by supermarket guards, into the supermarket, because the cashier accused me of not paying. But they weren't interested in seeing my receipt. Just in harassing me. Fortunately Jessica at the Farmacias Manríquez (near Merced and José Miguel de la Barra in downtown Santiago) across the street heard me scream "I want you to call the real cops! You have no right to do this! Look at my receipt!" (in Spanish of course) and called my people, whom I couldn't reach because I left my phone at home. And they showed up, asked what the fuck, and I talked to the lawyer extensively about it, he agreed it was harassment and coercive threats.
Who knew, screaming calls attention? And I couldn't use a phone because my hands were full, I was carrying glass bottles home that way because I didn't want to pay for a plastic bag. If I dropped them, they would say since they accused me of stealing them that I destroyed the merchandise and was a thief for sure. And then taken me to the ground and beat me up, that's their job basically.
Thanks Jessica of Farmacias Manríquez!
So phones? Not always a big help.
This story is baffling.
> Fortunately Jessica at the Farmacias Manríquez (near Merced and José Miguel de la Barra in downtown Santiago) across the street heard me scream "I want you to call the real cops! You have no right to do this! Look at my receipt!" (in Spanish of course) and called my people
Maybe social circles in south america are orders of magnitude bigger than the ones I have, but in an urban area it seems unlikely that there's going to be a random passer by that would know you well enough that they can "call your people"
> And I couldn't use a phone because my hands were full, I was carrying glass bottles home that way because I didn't want to pay for a plastic bag. If I dropped them, they would say since they accused me of stealing them that I destroyed the merchandise and was a thief for sure.
Why was slowly putting the bottles down and then getting out your phone not an option?
> Why was slowly putting the bottles down and then getting out your phone not an option?
It was not an option. I needed a counter to set them down, or drop the glass on the pavement.
The other factor was their verbal and physical impatience. They could have sent only two guards, that would have been fine, they sent four and there were two more a little farther away. That's excessive, that's coercive. They look pissed, so they practice their faces that's part of it, I've seen private security make faces before especially in "Fuck the Law" psych wards. It is tied to their expectation that their demands (not orders, that implies some real authority) be obeyed.
So if an interrogator has tortured a hundred people he will be at some point a coercion magician, need only make a gesture or hint to get people to see in him that in his mind he intends to torture the sufferer, because that was true for a hundred people before. People can see it easily. So these guys expected, because they had in fact ganged up four-on-one when feeling brave, in this case six-on-one because they were feeling cowardly, talking to a lawyer about it they definitely YES kick people on the floor, maleteo as it's called, suit-casing. That's a real thing they definitely do all the time when nobody's looking. So that experience is imprinted in their face, movements and attitude when they order me, impolitely, and refuse to look at a receipt, to come back into the supermarket. So by reflecting in their attitude the experience of coercion and beatings, they communicated to me, unarguably, but in a way they think leaves no proof, that I either did exactly what they said right away or they would attack me.
Maybe that explains the lack of choice...but really I think it was the food was meant to be eaten with special thanks given to GOD for it. Small feast. That was the real reason I couldn't drop it, so I couldn't duke it out either, hence screaming. Those guards can suck it, obviously if they need to gang up six-on-one they're worthless fighters. It would have been my first sevensome.
> So phones? Not always a big help.
I don't understand how you came to this conclusion when you simultaneously say
> [Jessica] called my people, whom I couldn't reach because I left my phone at home
If you had a phone, you could've just...called them yourself.
Except no because the whole hands full and bottles thing. Did you even bother reading the comment?
Yes but I disagree that they'd have broken the bottles had they put down a bag. I've had bottles in bags and not once did I break them by setting them down. They could've easily put the bottles down and called the police on their phone, if they brought it with them.
Great to see you again, cercatrova![1]
I didn't have a bag, that's what started it all. You don't get bags anymore in Chile[2]. The cashier, CE. NEWEN according to the receipt, accused me of not paying apparently in retaliation for my saying the plastic bag she offered was not worth the 57 cents the Walmart subsidiary charged for it (490 Chilean pesos)[1]. I decided to go without. Until her accusation that I didn't pay, I was carrying everything carefully in my arms.
So I was carrying two pint-sized cans of beer, a glass jar of olives, and a glass jar of anchovies all in my arms. Needed a surface if I was to set them down, in fact after being shepherded I set them down in an empty shopping cart before I could take out the receipt in my pocket, so my turn to make demands began.
[1] So this was the event that changed my attitude and just divulge on Hacker News.
[2] It's always minimal shit, one time it was over 1 cent in electricity, for which I offered to pay a dollar on the spot. Always minimal shit. Those plastic bags cost like 1.3 cents apiece, to make. Pure profit.
[3] And since this, I bring my own, which was the government's idea in not supplying bags any longer.
I think this guy is a bot. Is it possible this comment was created using ML?
So in reply to the posters who said I could still have used a phone: I could not. I had an Apple iPhone of exactly the kind covered in the class-action lawsuit, of which there was one in Chile, and I was eligible for the payout, still am in fact, it's like 170 dollars. But I haven't.
So I left that one at home, and in fact one of the people who came grilled me over and over as we walked down Victoria Subercaseaux "why didn't you bring your phone?" "WHY DIDN'T YOU BRING YOUR PHONE?"
Well I told him I had a similar phone, just no radio, and was connecting to the Walmart subsidiary's wifi with it, explicitly ordering the guards for the password after the cashier, CE NEWEN according to the receipt, made her premeditated apology. But surprise, screaming worked. It actually worked better! It was much better for someone else to call on my behalf than for me to call myself. And secondly, too predictable, they can tear the phone out of your hands, these guards were in gang-up beating mode, so they would not have tolerated a phone, the obvious choice. Very impatient and there were six of them, apparently armed.
When I got home and received a call, the phone I was supposed to take, its battery died. So battery would have died calling people on my own behalf, when the battery dies unexpectedly, the battery meter acts weird, it's not like getting locked out, when it dies it's a brick, you can't call emergency services.
I couldn't slowly put anything on the ground, these guards were in Fuck the Law mode. Evidently, because they never had any interest in my receipt, or my testimony. Six, 6 guards, shepherding me coercively back to the Walmart subsidiary where they controlled all the cameras and knew the terrain, could make up any shit they wanted. And a lawyer that came, called Nacho, told me exactly that, these guys don't like calling police because they want that power for themselves.
The uniforms say SWAT on them, S-W-A-T, supposedly it's SWAT-branded private security apparel, nothing to do with American Special Weapons And Tactics like in the movies. Like Apple computer having nothing to do with apples, just a brandname, "nombre de fantasía", it's not like actual fruit. So they're trying to intimidate people with the power of the law, precisely so people don't dare defend themselves, to imply their victim will get accused resisting arrest.
> And I couldn't use a phone because my hands were full
Sorry, but you could have used a phone.