Man arrested after spending $2 bills

Yet again, further clear cut evidence that our "land of the free" is in fact turning into a police controlled state. Apparently, it could be a crime in America, or more specifically Best Buy, if you purchase $114 worth of merchandise and decide to pay for it using $2 bills.

Man arrested, cuffed after using $2 bills

Commenting on the incident, Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey told the Sun: "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."

Hold on a minute there copper! Mike Bolesta is your average 57-year-old US citizen who likely bares absolutely no resemblance to post 9/11 Islamic terrorists!.. Face it folks, our government has declared WAR on our constitutional rights and freedoms!

So watch out now, piss off big brother and you'll pay!

[edit on 11-4-2005 by syntaxer]

That's an outrage and I hope somebody gets sued for real, for such humiliation and suffering of this innocent person.

And to tie 9/11 into this is beyond words. Idiocy rules here.

Well it looks that the bills were real after all, I call this ignorance rather than 9/11 result of the terror tactics.

Obviously the ignorance of some that never has seen bills like that prompted the response by the clerks and the police reaction.

The man next move will be to sue the establishment and try to go for the city.

[edit on 11-4-2005 by marg6043]

I read this article yesterday and was a bit baffled by the Polie comment about peple being a little nervous since 9/11.

What the heck has this case got to do with terrorism?

He should have paid with pennies
I think the 9/11 thing is a bit ridiculous but they might have thought that he was forging the money and might have been able to buy 'terrorist equipment' with it, maybe?

gee so when is the lawsuit against best buy and the police for wrongfull arrest takeing place. as well as the favt he was put on public display as a criminal, being handcuffed to a pole in plain view. so i guess he could also sue for public humiliatin.

i realize that it would be unuseual for someone to use us $2 bills but it can happen. there are quite alot of legal $2 bills out there. even though $2 bills are not useual they are still legal tender. in all honesty if someone were going to counterfet money i don't realy think they would use such a rare denomination.

it also would seem that best buy may be useing shady buisness practices. so since they felt it necisary to arest this gentleman for a possible crime i certainly hope the police then arrested those involved at the store in the possible action of telling the gentleman that he would not have to pay, and then changeing their minds, (also handcufed to the pole in full public view), untill they could sort through the man's aligation. after all whats good for the goose is good for the gander.

as for linking this to 9-11 that is just ridiculass. the man in question does not fit anything about a terrorist. he is not of possible arrab descent or any ather terrorist branch. well mabe the ira i guess. nor was he doing anything that even could be considered a terrorist offence. the most he would have been doing was distributing couterfet money. something that has happened since money was invented. sure terrorists may use conterfet money but so do non-terrorists.

that's just wrong!!!

I hope his city's police dept. and Best Buy issues a formal apology to this poor guy.

has nothing to do with 9/11..

I'll bet you that the clerk involved - and the others who gathered had never seen a $2 bill....

Best Buy,

That partially explains it..Ever ask a question of a clerk at that place.?
Anything beyond, "what color is that box?" or "how much is this?".
I'm sure it's made worse by the fact that the employees are fairly young, and that customers are using ATM cards, more and more often.
I hope this gets a lot of press.

???? You can go to a bank and cash your check for just 2 dollar bills. Isn't Andrew Johnson on them? I can't find my 2 dollar bill, but think it is him.

But yes, to someone who never seen a 2 dollar bill may assume it is fake, like a 200 dollar bill..... cause they are rare.

I agree that this is absolutely ludicrous and an injustice to this poor man

.....however......

Perhaps he should have had a little forethought, and not used 57 $2 bills that ran in sequential order.....I can understand why that would appear to be a bit suspicious....

He said he had thousands....Why not just use them in random order....

Because they are Two dollar bills and if your going to make a counterfeit bill you would prolly aim for a 10bill. I would've believed him, Almost everyone has seen a two dollar bill. THis is the lamest thing that could possibly happen to a person. but this was good for a good laugh. :w:

I don't think I need to mention how absurd this scenario is. The cashier who tried to refuse to take the money was way out of line, and everything just escalated after that, to no end.

The guy's got a pretty sweet job, though. If you had thousands of 2 dollar bills, wouldn't you sequence them? It'd be fun.

Heh, probably the first time in recorded history the clerks at a store paid any ammount of attention to the money handed to them. I've heard accounts of people handing off scan-and-print conterfeit 20$ bills to pay for something and the cashier never even noticed that the paper was alot lighter than normal cash. I bet a quick google search would have pointed out to the clerk that the two dollar bill is indeed real, but thats probably asking too much of them.

This is a scary example of what happens when you allow uneducated people to run wild.

Firstly, if you are working as a cashier it would probably be a good idea for you to become familiar with what is considered legal tender in the country you're working in.

Second, if you're really stumped for some reason, the best course would be to contact a supervisor who should be more well versed in such matters.

Third, if it does become necessary to call the police because you're unsure, an officer of the law should certainly know what's what.

I'm sorry, there is no excuse for this idiotic event and the man was clearly a victim of false arrest.

Do any of you own a business? Say you have a store and need singles, and you go to the bank. You guessed it, if the bank gives you a fresh stack of singles, they will in fact be in numerical order.

$1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 denominations are currently printed by the US Bureau of Printing and Engraving you know. Yes, that's right, $2 are still issued. If your business is taking currency from people, you might want to know that.

When I lived in NYC, I took 2-dollars bills and one-dollar coins to the bars with me all the time. It was a great converstaion starter, the chicks reallly dug it!

What an atrocity, he used real money, and gets arrested.

I can understand that you may think terrorists will make thier own money for funding purposes. But, how many of them would use 2 dollar bills to pay to install stereo systems?

If I recall, the denomination deemed most desirable to counterfeiters was the 20.

Simple reasoning really. Anything less is rather insignificant and not worth the trouble to print up. Anything of greater value is scrutinized more carefully by most people.

I can not honestly imagine a counterfeiting operation seriously going ahead with a plan to counterfeit 1 or 2 dollar bills.

Come to think of it....This issue is two-fold....

Best Buy charged him $114 to install a car stereo!?!

I could put it in for $25!

Originally posted by EnronOutrunHomerun
I could put it in for $25!

Well then you'd have 7 two-dollar bills and 1 one-dollar bill!