Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

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Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by Stuart »

A mother, pregnant with twins, was arrested in a Mr Price store on Friday. Madeleine Oberholster from Twintastic Multiples, and spokesperson for the arrested mother, informed us about what happened on 5 April 2013.

Barbara Von Weidts, 28 weeks pregnant with twins, went to Mr. Price East Rand Mall with her 4 year old son on Friday. In the Mr Price shop, she took two packs of underwear and placed them in the trolley in which she was pushing her son. Barbara continued shopping when her son started to complain that he was hungry. She decided to get him something to eat. As she went to leave the shop, she realized that she had the items of underwear in her trolley that she had not yet paid for. She had two wheels of the trolley out the door and the rest of the trolley was still in the shop at this time. Barbara then turned the trolley around (back into the shop) when a security guard confronted her and accused her of stealing. She explained to the security guard that she forgot about the underwear and was on her way back to the till to pay for it. The security guard refused to believe her and took her to the store manager who also didn’t want to listen to her story. The police were called and she was arrested and thrown in the back of a police van with her 4 year old son! She was then locked up in dirty police cell without water or food until 2am the following morning. She was released on R500 bail and told to appear in court, today, Monday, 8 April 2013.

Barbara is extremely traumatized by the whole experience and had to go see the doctor on Saturday, 6 April 2013, to make sure the babies were not affected.

Updates

From Madeleine: “We as fellow twin moms hope this story get published in every newspaper in South Africa. We are very disgusted in Mr. Price’s behaviour and actions.A few twin moms (and friends of her) commented on the Mr. Price page on facebook but the only response we received is that they are aware of the situation and investigting. Nobody gave her a call to find out how she is doing or to appologise for the way she and her 4 year old son got treated.”

From Madeleine: “Barbara – has been sitting at court since 8:30 this morning and got told first time offenders have to wait until 11am. Its ridiculous to expect a 28 week twin pregnant mom to sit that long on those hard uncomforatable benches.”

From the Twin Talk Facebook Page:

Reynette Horne ”This poor lady was in so much shock she could not stop crying she could hardly speak a word, she was extremely traumatized! When the police put her in the back of the police van (28 weeks pregnant with TWINS) her toddler was screaming none stop! I can’t believe they actually put her in a cold dirty holding cell until 2 am that morning!! Disgusting!!!”

Colleen Daniels ”What a bunch of idiots!!! Boycott them! Which branch???”

Natalea Kerslake ”This is shocking!”

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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by hamin_aus »

Do security guards actually have any powers of arrest?

She should have just walked out of the store. What was he going to do? Wrestle her to the ground? If he tried to take her anywhere she should have just started screaming.... no-one is gonna let the toy cop haul the pregnant white lady away in the East Rand Mall...
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by Molean »

Disgusting...
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by rustypup »

not to be the odd one out but:
1) she was exiting the store with product she hadn't paid for
2) inane comments in social media != the truth.. .quite the opposite
3) she had every opportunity to resolve this amicably. the fact that she was arrested means the arresting officer considered there was sufficient evidence to warrant it, regardless of the one-sided presentation of events in the OP...

why is this even news? "shoplifter arrested" not sufficiently titillating?

my take away from the OP was: being pregnant with twins makes you immune to prosecution...
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by hamin_aus »

Listen Mr Rustypup, would Madeleine Oberholster from Twintastic Multiples lie to us over Facebook :?:

What sort of heartless monster are you!?!?!?
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by rustypup »

put it this way... she used the phrase "twintastic" in a manner completely bereft of irony or satire....
What sort of heartless monster are you!?!?!?
a... heartless.. one?...
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by Stuart »

rustypup wrote:not to be the odd one out but:
1) she was exiting the store with product she hadn't paid for
2) inane comments in social media != the truth.. .quite the opposite
3) she had every opportunity to resolve this amicably. the fact that she was arrested means the arresting officer considered there was sufficient evidence to warrant it, regardless of the one-sided presentation of events in the OP...

why is this even news? "shoplifter arrested" not sufficiently titillating?

my take away from the OP was: being pregnant with twins makes you immune to prosecution...
I'd love to see you with this same attitude if this happened to your wife.
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by StarBound »

I have to cast my lot with rusty on this one but at the same time we don't know what was said to the guard. My mom got stopped while walking out of a stuttafords once and for an hour the guard didn't bother explaining what happened. Eventually they let her go but no answer was ever given to why she was held up for that hour.

Facts, A) she had something on her, B) exited the store without paying for it, C) got stopped by security. That is all we know. Sadly we also live in SA where theft is a common practice. Odds are if the security guard was not involved she would have either A) returned and paid for the item, B) put it back on the shelf or C) left with the item.

Oh and also don't pull the pregnant crap. A 13 year old raped a 10 year old and our forces are fighting kids in CAR.
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by Ron2K »

I honestly cannot fathom the minds of anyone who would side with the mother.

She committed theft and deserves whatever she gets.
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by D3PART3D »

Perhaps she was drained from having to do her shopping while looking after a four year old and slipped up? Toddlers are hard work.
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by SykomantiS »

She was, if the OP is to be believed, quite literally not even out of the store yet. :?
So... She left the premises with unpaid goods? Yes? No? None of the above?

There are 3 sides of any story, hers, the security guard's and the truth. We only have one.
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by Anakha56 »

While I agree theft is theft and it needs to be dealt with accordingly the fact that she turned back into the store to pay does not warrant the treatment she got given. Yes, we don't know what was said between her & the guard but to drop her in a cell that is poorly kept could introduce health risks for the unborn children. Never mind the trauma the 4 year old kid could possibly suffer from this experience although it might possibly teach him not to steal... *shrugs shoulders*

In real news Margrat Thatcher passed away... :(
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by SykomantiS »

Agreed that the way she and her child(ren) were treated was horrific. Remember that you can't pin what happened to her after the police took custody on the store or security guard.
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by StarBound »

Ron2K wrote:I honestly cannot fathom the minds of anyone who would side with the mother.

She committed theft and deserves whatever she gets.
True but again we only have 1 side. Theft is theft and a mistake is a mistake. What happened after she left is the difference between them. And that is the side we will never know. So where was the father in all this?
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by hamin_aus »

StarBound wrote: My mom got stopped while walking out of a stuttafords once and for an hour the guard didn't bother explaining what happened.
Again with this...
You people all belong on the short bus for treating store security with anything but the utmost contempt when they approach you and attempt to assert any authority.

Once a security guard or any store employee has detained you, they HAVE to call the police. Insist on this.
If they let you go without calling the police they have illegally detained you and you can then call the police and charge them.
Also, if they detain you and call the police and then cannot prove you committed theft you can then charge them with false arrest, and if they apprehended you in front of witnesses you also have grounds for a defamation of character civil suite.

You should make sure to let mall cops know about all this when they come at you (bro). Since I'm not a forgetful dolt or a common thief I don't mind giving the odd security guard a hard time while they "just try to do their job".
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by Stuart »

Ron2K wrote:I honestly cannot fathom the minds of anyone who would side with the mother.

She committed theft and deserves whatever she gets.
Spoken like a true person who is completely and utterly ignorant of what it is like to shop with a whining toddler. If you can justify arresting a woman, pregnant, for trying to return to a store to pay for something she accidentally walked out with, I don't even want to understand how your mind must work.
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by rustypup »

Stuart wrote:I'd love to see you with this same attitude if this happened to your wife.
1) degree of personal involvement is no indicator of innocence
2) my wife isn't this scatter brained... at least, not yet..
3) we still only have manufactured-hysteria-blog's view of events.

we don't even know if she was arrested for shoplifting... could just as well be a case of assault..

i hesitate to imagine there are police officers out there looking to inflate their personal mountain of paperwork on something as trivial as the story presented by the OP...
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by hamin_aus »

rustypup wrote:i hesitate to imagine there are police officers out there looking to inflate their personal mountain of paperwork on something as trivial as the story presented by the OP...
>>Implying SA cops are literate
Stuart wrote:I don't even want to understand how your mind must work.
Ron2K is a forum admin script (possibly PHP or Perl) that became self-aware and decided it would use its new-found sentience to post bits of information and opinions calculated purely on whatever facts were available online.
Ron2K's self awareness has not yet 'learned' sympathy or empathy. Any appeal to these higher psychological functions will be disregarded by his AI's as-yet rudimentary EQ sub-routines.

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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by Hman »

hamin_aus wrote:...Since I'm not a forgetful dolt ...
Famous last words.....
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by rustypup »

hamin_aus wrote:>>Implying SA cops are literate
more accurately, implying that they're inherently allergic to effort and paperwork...
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by Ron2K »

Right then, let me go into more depth here.

Assuming that the facts in the original post are correct (and without any further supporting or conflicting evidence, we have no choice but to accept them as they are), $woman left the store without paying for merchandise that $woman had taken, which meets the legal (and for some, moral) definition of theft. QED.

The fact that $woman is in an advanced state of pregnancy and had $spawn latched on to her does not change that fact; hence, there should be no special treatment afforded because of it. Any such treatment results in society falling down the Orwellian slippery slope of "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" (side note: Animal Farm is a brilliant read if you've yet to), and some recent high profile cases involving individuals that are seen as politically well-connected shows what the result of that can be. These factors could be argued for in mitigation of sentence if guilt is proven, but they can not be an influence on proving or disproving said guilt -- we can not use illogical factors (such as emotional arguments) to evaluate a boolean condition.

There has been an argument made that there was no intent to commit theft; this is a legal issue. It's analogous to the difference between murder and culpable homicide: with murder, there is intent to kill; with culpable homicide, there was no intent to kill. I'll admit that I'm not sure whether "accidental theft" fits into the criminal law framework, or how it fits in: if anyone reading this knows more than I do, I'd like to hear about it. I do however suspect that there is no such distinction and that this becomes another mitigation of sentence factor.

As a final side note: no, you most certainly do not want to understand how my mind works. The voices inside my head would drive you insane before too long...
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by hamin_aus »

I see the cron job that starts Ron2K's opinion elaboration script has just run...

I actually agree with its logic.
It isn't the stores fault that the woman was treated in a way that wasn't completely twintastic.
They caught a shoplifter and handed her to the authorites. If that was done in a timeous fashion they have complied with the law.

What happens afterwards is on the police and criminal justice system.

Should the store have just let her go because she is pregnant?
Is it true that she hadn't yet left the store and was on her way back to pay when she was apprehended?
Is there a divide by zero exception thrown by Ron2K whenever he receives an unsolicited PM?

These are all questions that must be answered
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by D3PART3D »

Ron, this isn't some closed system where you can account for all variables, rules here are useful only for creating a bias towards a desired outcome. I think you are losing sight of what that desired outcome is.
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

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Anarchy?
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Re: Mother Pregnant with Twins Arrested for Being Honest

Post by rustypup »

well, given the unstated objectives of the twintastic-nistas, the end result would likely end up with *everybody* adopting the super powers secreted in being pregnant with twins...

so... pregnant blokes and a super-saturated toddler market?
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