This incident happened a little over a year ago.
I was in my office in the middle of the day on a Wednesday when I received a phone call from a flustered manager of mine. Apparently a customer had come into the store irate and screaming that one of our drivers had parked in the handicap parking and that she was calling the police. As its policy to call the Area Director anytime the police are called from the store the manager immediately called me. I arrived at the store 20 minutes later.
When I arrived the screaming lady had left but the strip mall manager had arrived as the screaming lady had managed to call the mall management office. My manager informed us that driver in question was working for us but not as a driver. She had been in an accident three weeks prior (not on the job) and had badly injured her leg. The Store Manager had kept her on as a phone and counter person, positions that she could do while sitting on a stool. She had been issued a temporary handicap tag, the kind that hangs from your rear view mirror. At that time the police officer arrived.
The manager explained the situation to him and he went out to run the tag on our employees car. When he returned he confirmed that her tag was valid and she was allowed to park there. He then asked if we had any footage of the incident with the woman screaming. I, along with him and the mall manager went back to the store office and brought up the camera footage of the incident. Our cameras are great, good resolution, well placed, and have microphones so we can hear as well as see
We saw the woman come in and immediately start screaming at the employee in question that she was going to have her arrested and her car towed and that she was calling the cops. She made such a scene that the two customers waiting in the lobby bolted out the door without ordering. The kicker was that upon viewing the footage the mall manager said he knew the woman.
He, the officer, and I went to his office where he brought up the security camera footage of the parking lot. He rewound to the point where we saw the woman exit her car, parked next to my employees in a handicap spot. The officer made a note of it and then the mall manager sped up the footage till we saw the woman exit my store and walk to the mall annex where there are offices. The mall manager explained that this woman worked in one of the offices and had complained to him multiple times that our drivers were taking up all the employee parking in the back. He told her multiple times that the parking back there is shared on a first come basis.
The officer went to the parking lot found her car and ran her tag. She had the same kind of tag as my employee except hers was registered to a mans name. The officer and the mall manager went down the annex to the offices and I returned to the store and had the manager begin writing her incident report. After ten minutes the officer and mall manager returned with the woman in tow. The officer asked my employee to confirm if it was the same woman that yelled at her which she did. The officer than asked if I would show the woman the footage of her yelling which we went to the office and did.
After it was all said and done it turned out that the woman was using her husbands tag to park in the handicap spot albeit without her husband with her. The officer explained to her that was a violation of the law and wrote her a $500 ticket for illegally parking in the handicap spot. The officer then wrote her a ticket for disorderly conduct for yelling in the store for which she would have to appear before a judge. Then they did something I really did not expect. The mall manager had the officer write her a trespass notice. Basically if she ever set foot on mall property again she would be arrested. She was in violation of the lease that governs the conduct of the employees of the lessee. He explained that her behavior was unacceptable and that if the company she worked for wanted to keep her it would have to be in a job that didn't require her presence at that office.
I felt bad because she was in tears by the end of it but I wasn't in a position to alter the outcome even if I wanted to. I did find out later that the company she worked for terminated her employment that week and that was the last we heard of her.
Why calling the police may not be such a good idea (long)
Awesome visual.
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