Movie Theater Security Guards Assault Women, Claim They Were Pirating Movie

from the has-it-really-come-to-this? dept

Halfway through the film, Telfer decided to leave because she found the movie to be too violent.



“When I left the theatre I heard someone yelling behind me, ‘Sir! Sir!’ I didn’t think much of it,” said Telfer.



“Out of nowhere I felt someone grab me from behind. My reaction [was] to get this person off of me. Unfortunately it did escalate and he did somehow get on top of me.”

Wong, unaware of what had happened to her friend, left the theatre shortly after to find Telfer.



Wong said a guard approached her and little explanation was given except that the security guards had been watching them all night and that something on the guards’ heat sensor guns had gone off. She added that they attempted to search her bag.

None of them are cops. None of them have search warrants. Barry from Disney demanded to know why we were leaving before the movie ended. — Elaine Wong (@elthenerd) September 22, 2016

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It's well-known that the big studios and the MPAA like to indoctrinate movie theater employees into believing that there's a horrible menace of people trying to pirate movies in the theaters, and that in some cases, they even hand out money to employees who "catch" pirates in the act. In general, all this really does is make it less enjoyable to go to the movies -- and sometimes leads to elderly patrons being ejected from theaters because some kid is totally sure she's pirating the film she's watching.And the latest example is even more extreme, where private security forces apparently decided to assault a couple of Toronto women they falsely accused of pirating a showing of. One of the women, Jean Telfer, says she actually decided to leave the film early because she found it too violent. Apparently the idea that a pirate probably wouldn't be leaving in the middle of a film didn't occur to the geniuses Sony Pictures had specifically hired to "guard" the showing. So they tackled Telfer. Really.Bizarrely, despite all of that, the guy who tackled her never told her why and then just let her go. But when her friend, Elaine Wong, also went to leave, the experience was a bit different.Wong noted that they left right before the action really started, and if they were trying to pirate a movie, you'd think they'd "wait until a lot of people start dying." Eventually both Telfer and Wong were told to remain with security until the police arrived -- though after a while when no police arrived, they were apparently let go. The two did decide to file a police report of their own, arguing that they had been illegally assaulted by security at the theater.In some tweets, Wong notes that they demanded to search her bag, and also demanded to know why they were leaving early -- as if that were some sort of "sign" of piracy in action (though she refers to the guy as being from Disney, the news reports say he was hired by Sony).Once again, I fail to see how treating regular customers as criminals helps Hollywood convince more people to pay to see movies. It likely has the reverse effect.

Filed Under: copyright, movie theater, piracy, toronto