Retail Store Detention for Almost Four Hours

My question involves civil rights in the State of:
In Hawaii i have been accused of shoplifting. The LPO (loss pvention officer) grabbed my arm outside the store yanked my phone from my ear while i was on the phone, did not tell me why they wanted me to come back in the store, my packages along with my purse taken from my arm and was not told why i was or merchandise accused of stealing until they wanted me to sign forms (which i did not) saying i shoplifted. i was held 3 hrs and 45 minutes before the LPO decided to call the police. I was also locked in a room and was told to knock on the glass window if i needed something in which i asked to use the bathroom and was denied, i also was Not allowed to speak to my friend whom came to the office to see if i was alright and what was going on. i also suffer from PTSD depression. anxiety and was not asked about any mental disabilities. The store also did not return my other items i had in my packages that i was not accused of stealing.
1)Do they LPO have to state why i am being held or why they needed me to go back in the store?
2)What is a resonable amount of time to be held before police are called? .
3) dont i have the right to use the bathroom while held?
4)Lastly when i received the police report it was totally fabricated stating she seen me grab items and the dressing rooms was checked before hand and it did not mention of the other LPO whom took my pkgs and and grabbed my arm etc
Mahalo so much for your time in reading

I don't know at what point you were expressly told that you were being detained for shoplifting, but you presumably figured it out within seconds of being detained.

The reasonable length of the detention is defined by statute, below; if the police were not called for almost four hours after you were detained, the store would appear to have lost its statutory defense to a wrongful detention action.

I have no way of knowing why you weren't permitted to use a restroom, and I choose not to speculate. If you have your case reviewed by a lawyer, that's something to bring to your lawyer's attention.

You will have to discuss the police report and its content with your criminal defense lawyer. You have not told us that you were not shoplifting, you have not told us that you weren't caught with merchandise that you were attempting to steal, and you have not told us that despite whatever exaggeration you claim to be in the police report that you weren't witnessed committing acts of shoplifting. You don't need to confess to us that you were shoplifting, if that was in fact the case, but it could be helpful to know if you were not.

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Quoting H.R.S. Sec. 663-2 Defense of lawful detention.

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In any action for false arrest, false imprisonment, unlawful detention, defamation of character, assault, trespass, or invasion of civil rights, brought by any person by reason of having been detained on or in the immediate vicinity of the premises of a retail mercantile establishment for the purpose of investigation or questioning as to the ownership of any merchandise, or a motion picture theater for the purpose of investigation or questioning as to an unauthorized audiovisual recording of a motion picture, it shall be a defense to the action that the person was detained in a reasonable manner and for not more than a reasonable time to permit such investigation or questioning by a police officer or by the owner of the retail mercantile establishment or motion picture theater, the owner's authorized employee, or agent, and that such police officer, owner, employee, or agent had reasonable grounds to believe that the person so detained was committing or attempting to commit larceny of merchandise or unauthorized audiovisual recording of a motion picture on the premises.

As used in this section:

"Motion picture theater" means a movie theater, screening room, or other venue in use primarily for the exhibition of a motion picture at the time of the unauthorized audiovisual recording of a motion picture.

"Reasonable grounds" includes, but is not limited to, knowledge that a person has concealed possession of unpurchased merchandise of the retail mercantile establishment or has made an unauthorized audiovisual recording of a motion picture taken at a motion picture theater.

"Reasonable time" means the time necessary to permit the person detained to make a statement or to refuse to make a statement, and the time necessary to examine employees and records of the mercantile establishment or motion picture theater relative to the ownership of the merchandise or making of an unauthorized audiovisual recording of a motion picture.

"Retail mercantile establishment" means a place where goods, wares, or merchandise are offered to the public for sale.

This section applies to legal actions resulting from detentions occurring after May 21, 1967, for retail merchant establishments, and after May 18, 2005, for motion picture theaters.

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i also suffer from PTSD depression. anxiety and was not asked about any mental disabilities

What on EARTH makes you think they're supposed to?

Being detained for 4 hours is not unreasonable.

Sometimes when people shoplift, they go around the store ripping tags off, concealing them in other places, and doing all sorts of things that will take a very long time for store loss prevention to figure out when they are caught. I've had to take upwards of an hour before to backtrack through the store recovering empty packages, tags, etc. discarded by shoplifters.

Also, you say that it was 3 hours and 45 min before the LPO "decided to call the police." Do you know that for a fact? Or is that how long it took before the police came? Some police departments get busy, and picking up a person who is already in custody and committing no new crimes is not a high priority call. I've had shoplifters waiting for 2+ hours for the police to come from the time I called dispatch.

Finally, are you sure that your conception of time is accurate? When your sitting in a cell or detainment room, 30 min can feel like 2 hours.

And no, you have no right to be allowed to see your friend, and no one cares about your depression. Talk to your counselor about that after you are released. And if they don't think they can safely get you to the bathroom, you will wait.

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Quoting DeputyDog

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Being detained for 4 hours is not unreasonable.

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Read the statute again, and explain your thinking. If your thought is, "Maybe the police were called right away," or "Maybe it was only thirty minutes", while not outside the realm of possibility, those aren't the facts we were given.

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Quoting DeputyDog

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Sometimes when people shoplift, they go around the store ripping tags off, concealing them in other places, and doing all sorts of things that will take a very long time for store loss prevention to figure out when they are caught. I've had to take upwards of an hour before to backtrack through the store recovering empty packages, tags, etc. discarded by shoplifters.

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You do this investigation after detaining the suspect, without calling the police? In what state?

Although many States do state the time limits of detention in their Merchant Detention statutes, Hawaii does not. I do agree with Mr. Knowitall that almost fours (if that is a true time line) is unreasonable. And to deny a person the ability to use the bathroom for that amount of time is certainly unreasonable. The last thing you want a judge or jury to hear is - I was detained for almost fours hours and they denied me the ability to use the restroom facilities....so I pissed my pants.

I have written many times about the detention of shoplifters and the length of time waiting for the police to respond. You have to ask, for how long and to what end?

I would say the detention time is relevant to the circumstances loss prevention engaged in during that time. If she was in the store for 2 hours, it could easily take 3 or more to obtain and review the tape.

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Quoting Disagreeable

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I would say the detention time is relevant to the circumstances loss prevention engaged in during that time. If she was in the store for 2 hours, it could easily take 3 or more to obtain and review the tape.

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Maybe, but if LP has followed the 6-step guidelines they should already know if the suspect(s) had actually taken store merchandise, what they took and where it is concealed. If there is video evidence it is easily viewed as the time frame of the event should be ready for viewing, by LP or the police.

If the suspect was stopped without probable cause and the evidence is reviewed as to whether or not the suspect took the merchandise....well you know what the outcome of that will be.

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Quoting ALOHA1

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My question involves civil rights in the State of:
In Hawaii i have been accused of shoplifting. The LPO (loss pvention officer) grabbed my arm outside the store yanked my phone from my ear while i was on the phone, did not tell me why they wanted me to come back in the store, my packages along with my purse taken from my arm and was not told why i was or merchandise accused of stealing until they wanted me to sign forms (which i did not) saying i shoplifted. i was held 3 hrs and 45 minutes before the LPO decided to call the police. I was also locked in a room and was told to knock on the glass window if i needed something in which i asked to use the bathroom and was denied, i also was Not allowed to speak to my friend whom came to the office to see if i was alright and what was going on. i also suffer from PTSD depression. anxiety and was not asked about any mental disabilities. The store also did not return my other items i had in my packages that i was not accused of stealing.
1)Do they LPO have to state why i am being held or why they needed me to go back in the store?
2)What is a resonable amount of time to be held before police are called? .
3) dont i have the right to use the bathroom while held?
4)Lastly when i received the police report it was totally fabricated stating she seen me grab items and the dressing rooms was checked before hand and it did not mention of the other LPO whom took my pkgs and and grabbed my arm etc
Mahalo so much for your time in reading

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It would be interesting to read the rest of this story.

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Quoting Disagreeable

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I would say the detention time is relevant to the circumstances loss prevention engaged in during that time. If she was in the store for 2 hours, it could easily take 3 or more to obtain and review the tape.

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Running for a moment with the assumption that this was a particularly long shopping trip, if nobody in the store saw the customer shoplift, and nobody in the store knows approximately when in a two hour window an incident of shoplifting might have occurred, then even before we get to the fact that the playback equipment will provide for fast forwarding during times when no suspicious activity is occurring, it would be difficult for the store to argue that the detention was legal. The described incident involves specific allegations that the customer was seen grabbing things, and apparently about the customer's activity in changing rooms, so it should have been pretty easy to focus any review of the security footage to a relatively small time frame.

While I am certainly not an expert at loss prevention, I do feel compelled to point out that what is reasonable and what is legal are not necessarily the same thing. For the purpose of the OP's legal rights, they don't have to be reasonable - they only have to be legal. So while the discussion on reasonableness is interesting, I have a question; assuming that the OP's perception of 4 hours is correct, was it LEGAL? Reasonable is subjective - legal is not.