It is not at all unusual for Dillard's security guards to question juveniles without their parents being present, even when the parents are nearby and request to be present at the interview.

Sixteen-year-old Jeremy Perez of Houston went to Deerbrook Mall with his mother and sister in July 2000. Splitting up from his family, he went to the men's department, where he tried on some shirts. He was heading back to his mother when a security guard ordered Perez to come with him. Perez's mother asked to accompany him, but the security officer refused. He was taken to a back room where officers from the Humble Police Department searched him. He was asked if he was with "the other black boys." No stolen merchandise was found.

Randy Haynes of Port Arthur went to Dillard's to get clothes for his 19th birthday. He was accused of shoplifting by an officer who asked to look in Haynes's pants. The guard took him to a back office and patted him down in front of his crying 14-year-old sister.

Michaela Reneae Merrick was 11 when she was accused of shoplifting a bathing suit at the Dillard's at the Mall of Abilene. Paraded through the store on her way to being questioned, the preteen asked to call her mother and the Dillard's employee said no. No stolen merchandise was found.

Sisters LaQuan Stallworth and Charity Edwards were shopping at Dillard's Parkdale Mall in Beaumont in February 2001 when they also were confronted by security guard Waggoner.

Stallworth, who plays professional basketball overseas, and Edwards, who works as a cashier, said Waggoner accused them of shoplifting without cause, threatened to take them to jail and pushed them out of the store.

Waggoner, an 18-year officer with the Beaumont Police Department, gave a different accounting at his May 22 deposition. Glancing over a grouping of hanging clothes, Waggoner said, he saw sudden movement.

"I'm a hunter. I deer hunt and so motion catches my eyes. And I all of a sudden saw this hand take three shirts down." Waggoner said when he went over to talk with the girls they no longer had the shirts and he found them later crumpled up on the shelf they came from.

The two left the store, then returned to make a complaint about Waggoner's watching them. One woman "adopted a southern plantation slave type of voice and yelled out real loud that she guessed we don't want black folks in our store," Waggoner said, which he added offended him, as race has nothing to do with his actions as a security guard. He said because they were acting so belligerently, he wanted them to leave the store instead of being arrested. He did put his hands on one woman's arm and back, but did nothing to hurt them, he said.

Dillard's said it has made internal changes to identify employees "who may need additional training in customer relations." It updated its harassment policy to enable complainants and witnesses to contact the corporate legal office directly instead of going through the local store.

Dillard's has even hired professionals posing as shoppers to record their experiences in stores and says the results were very positive for Dillard's.

Suspected shoplifters must be allowed to exit the store to make sure they are, in fact, shoplifting, Dillard's tells its personnel. Dillard's policies also forbid strip searches and say that handcuffs should not be used unless a suspect poses a threat to customers or to Dillard's personnel. Suspects can be detained for a reasonable amount of time in order to conduct a reasonable investigation. Employees are supposed to approach a customer only after they believe that merchandise has been removed; it is not enough merely to be suspicious of his motives or behavior.

Again, whether these policies are actually carried out is another question. In 1997, a well-dressed African-American woman was strip-searched in a Dillard's in Cleveland, Ohio. No stolen articles were found.

In a 1999 case in Arlington, Texas, a security guard ended up running through the store filled with shoppers, firing at the escaping shoplifter as he chased him onto an elevator.

Roy Don Bearden had boosted a beard trimmer from a nearby Sears store. Caught hiding in a clothing rack in Dillard's, Bearden ran from guard Keith Humphrey, an Arlington police officer working off-duty in the store. Humphrey ended up shooting Bearden four times, killing him. Police said Bearden had threatened to kill Humphrey. A judge dismissed the case, saying it was clear that Humphrey was acting as a police officer.