Today my 14 year old son decided that he wanted to have a criminal record and stole some items that came to a retail total of about $69 at Target. I have a question about their policies and procedures. Unfortunately I wasn't there, but shopping two stores down, the happenings in question are what my husband has told me.
First as my husband was leaving Target, our boys were about 4-5 feet behind him. Two of Target's loss prevention specialists placed themselves between my husband and our children, all while "pushing" the boys back into the store. I put the word pushing in quotes because though they did not touch my boys, they were taking steps back into the store therefore causing my boys to have to walk backwards or else be walked on. My husband asked them repeatedly what this was all about (all while thinking these guys were trying to take our children) and did not get a response. It wasn't until he told them that our children were not going anywhere with them that they finally decided to produce security "ID". I put ID in quotes because all he saw was a red card with the word "Security" printed on it.
At this point my husband is a bit on edge (thinking someone is trying to take your children will do this to a person), but decides that he will see what this is all about. They take the boys into a room and tells them to empty their pockets, and out comes stolen merchandise out of our oldest son's pockets. My husband became very mad at our son and asked him what the hell he was thinking. At this time the loss prevention specialist told my husband to leave the room, because there wasn't enough room for him and both of my sons. My husband told him that he would not leave the room because our son is under 18 and he wanted to stay with him. He was then told that he had to leave and that they would remove him by force if they had to.
The loss prevention specialist then proceded to interrogate my son with out a parent present. I want to know if this is right or legal for that matter. If it is, I am at a loss, because the police can't even question a minor without a parent present, so why would a loss prevention person be able to?
Oh, this all happened in Washington County in the state of Oregon.

