Shoplifting stories?

[Shangri-laschild]

So I want to preface this with the face that I know it's my fault for the theft being able to occur and that I was an idiot in how I handled it.

I used to be assistant manager at a gas station. I'm female and 5'4". Not very big or scary and no hidden awesome ass kicking skills in case.

I have a bad knee and was working by myself. It had been a long night and I just wanted to sit down for a second. I figured, I'll hear the door if someone comes in, get up, and be fine(you can't see most of the store when you're sitting down but no one was there...I thought). I still don't know how he got in and how I didn't hear the door open, but all of a sudden I heard a rustling behind the chips isle. I get up and see one of the weird regulars. He always seems kind of off but whatever. He sees me and smiles, and goes into the bathroom. I don't remember if I realized then something was up or if it wasn't until he got out. I should mention that on the wall oposite the counter was the bathrooms and the managers office where we kept the extra behind the counter stuff including the alcohol and cig cartons. I had left it cracked a bit, not thinking, because I had had to run in and out of it so many times and can't just unlock it plus, if I'm standing, no way in hell anyone can sneak into it.

Well he comes out of the bathroom...this normally scrawny guy...looking stuffed like Santa. I'm pissed as hell. Partly at myself for being dumb enough to not be watching and partly at him for having the audacity and idiocy to be that obvious at a store that knows him by face. So I demand that he empties his shirt. He tries to act like he doesn't know for a second and then takes two cartons out of it. Now until then I hadn't thought about the door and figured he just had a couple of bags of chips in his shirt. The second those two cartons came out and his shirt is still bulging like crazy I'm even more pissed. Not to mention I'm going to get talked to about it and I have no clue what else he has. So I keep demanding that he empty his jacket. Each time he takes a little more out and then tries to leave. I have no clue why he didn't just run. He what looked like everything out and ran (I tried to stop him and he accidently dropped the last carton he had on the way out).

I locked the store while I was waiting for the cops and wrang up all the stuff so I could print a void reciept so we would know how much he tried to steal. A little over 3000. Was shaky as hell. Didn't help much that when I tried to call my boss I got "I'll call you back" yelled in my ear and hung up on. Not angry at her...she was in an abusive relationship and she was kicking the guy out after he tried to take a swing at her. Not knowing that at the time though, I had no clue what to do. Everything turned out fine though. They did catch him and I didn't get in any trouble.

[Alpha Strike]

We once had a case of a guy who was observed at an Albertsons meat section stuffing several steaks inside his sweat pants. The guy then started walking/waddling toward the front of the store. He was stopped by LP and charged with shoplifting.

The judge found the man not guilty as soon as the prosecution rested because the guy was stopped while still in the store and had not yet made it to the registers. In my state, the theft cannot be assumed until the accused walks past the last possible place a payment could be made. The guy was lucky LP was so efficient in that store.

Can't theft be assumed if the accussed is obviously trying to conceal merchandise or doesn't appear as though he's going to pay? Seems pretty unlikely that someone stuffing steaks inside their sweats and then heading for the doors is planning on paying for them.

(And even if he were planning to purchase the items, why the heck would you stuff 'em down your pants? Ugh. "Hey honey, we'll need to make sure to cook these a bit longer then normal - have to make sure to cook off all my ball sweat.")

[looney_librarian]

Two stories here. Mine and a friends.

My story first.
It was a normal Friday evening at Media Play. It was getting close to closing time when this gentleman walks in the door. He makes a b-line to my department and asks (almost demands) for Gran Turismo 4 and Grand Theft Auto (can't remember the number). He then proceeds straight back to the music and books section at the back of the store. Well I get the feeling that something isn't quite right and I tell my floor manager this. We search for him and see him just as he's walking toward the front door. I notice that he doesn't have the games with him, yet the front of his pants look a little squarish.

I start walking up to the front as quickly as possible all the while saying "sir?"
He notices me and bolts for the door. I run to the door and reach the outer set of doors about a second behind the guy. I see flash and hear a click which tells me he just pulled a knife. I see his arm move and jump out of the way as he swipes at me say, "Get back or I'll cut ya man."

I back off as he starts jogging around our parking lot towards the Red Lobster in front of us and then to the Office Max. It just so happens that a police officer was doing his normal rounds. I run up to the door yell, "Thief," and point to where the man is running. The cop seems confused. I catch my breath tell him quickly that a thief is trying to run and he pulled a knife on me. The cop starts after the guy. At this point I hear the squealing of tires as apparently the thief's buddy sees what's going on. I fear that this guy might get away and I take off for where the thief is and get there just as the police catch the guy. The buddy in the car sees this and keeps on driving. The guy had thrown the games underneath a Rent-a-Center truck.

The cop asks if I want to press charges and I say yes, but nothing seems to come of it.

A few weeks pass by and I'm at the courthouse representing MP for other thieves and whatnot. The guy that pulled a knife on me was there and apparently had done an aggravated assault while out on bail. Kind of makes his stealing a moot point.

My friends.
My friend works at a Sam's club in the same town as the MP. There was a guy who decided to try and steal rotisserie chickens from the deli. Well he grabbed two that had just come off the rotisserie and were wrapped. He wasn't 'stealing' until he made it past the checkout. He did and then immediately collapsed due to pain. The cause? The still steaming juices of the chickens had melted the plastic and were running down his crotch and legs. The managers didn't know who to call first, the police or the paramedics. (I think the guy wound up with 3rd degree burns on his crotch area and 2nd degree on his legs)

[Seolta]

I've got a few...three from my time in retail, and one from the library.(warning: long)

Retail first, though:

One was an older gentleman who came in all the time, usually on Thursdays, when a lot of other seniors came in to play bingo in the store's cafe. He was a regular, and friendly with a number of people on staff in different departments, so he'd always stop and say hi to everyone, and was always very polite. As he's chatting with the girl at the jewelry counter one day, the department manager from toys comes up to the service desk, followed briefly by the LP manager, who asks the gentleman to step over to the desk for a moment, then asks him to look up at the black bubble over the door and smile for the camera. LP manager asks if he knows why, and the man shakes his head, and is asked to empty his pockets onto the counter. In the pockets of his coveralls were the contents of about four bags of the little "fun size" candy bars. Toy manager had seen him opening bags, and later found a couple of empty bags and got suspicious. He might have gotten away with it if he'd left with the bingo crowd, but he was caught 'cause he wanted to stop and chat with his friends.

The second was a lady who, when the LP manager asked if he could have a word with her(not mentioning that she'd been seen shoplifting), sprayed him in the face with pepper spray and took off. She didn't get very far, and wound up face-down on the floor with someone's knee in the small of her back, arms behind her, with every manager in the store circled around her. She started yelling that "you can't do this to me, I'm pregnant!" and the bed+bath manager told her that she should've thought of that before assaulting security. They were nice enough to catch her in the aisle directly across from my register, so I got a clear view of most of the proceedings

Third was Box Man. A guy in a tacky-looking mismatched suit wandered in on early on a Sunday morning, before the first cashier got in, and walked behind the cigarette counter and loaded up a spare box with a number of cartons of cigarettes before proceeding to the health/beauty section with said box. Any other time of day, it wouldn't have happened, but I was the only person up front that time of day(CS supervisor doubled as cashier for the first hour, till a cashier got in, and first cashier would go to the cigarette lane on the other end to prevent this sort of thing, and there was a rather large TV/pillar blocking line of sight between the desk and the cigs...but I digress). So the guy's wandering around HBA, arms wrapped around a cardboard box, and the lady working that area starts to walk over to see if he needs help. Box slips, she sees what's inside, and calls for LP and the manager on duty. Meanwhile, Box Man figures it might be a good idea for him to leave, so he quickly walks out(smart enough not to run and draw more attention) with said box...right past the service desk, with the manager and anyone else not chained to a register following soon after, and someone yells for me to call the cops, we're being robbed.

I got the rest of the story afterwards...Box Man hadn't driven himself...he'd called a cab. Taxi driver heard the ruckus and refused to make himself an accessory by helping BM escape, so BM climbed back out of the car and started running. Bed/bath manager(who was not all that big or muscle-y, but made up for it with attitude) yells that she's "gonna get you, you @#(*$%!!!" and he drops the box and runs faster. Sadly, Box Man escaped, though the merchandise was recovered. Better news, though, came from the cabbie, who was more than willing to help us out. Box Man had a routine, you see...on Saturdays and Sundays, he'd call this particular cab company, and have them pick him up at his house(cabbie had the address handy), take him to local K-marts, Walmarts, etc, and wait for him to come back out with his "purchases," and when he had enough he'd get them to take him to the flea market to sell his wares.


Oddly enough, all of the above may have been smarter than the guy from the library. A man comes up to the desk with a book in hand and says he wants to buy the book, how much will it cost? Did he get the book from the sale table the Friends of the Library have over by the door? No, it came from the shelves over there. We explain that the book is not for sale. "What if I checked it out and then kept it, how much would it cost to pay for it?" Wanting to dissuade him from this line of thought, I offer to direct him to the reference desk, where they can help him find his very own copy of the book online, and at a very reasonable price. No, it has to be this copy, it's his favorite book and we only have the one and he's checked it out lots of times and wants this copy.

I ask him to wait a moment, coworker keeps him busy, and I go get our supervisor and explain the situation to her. Supervisor comes out, walks up to the man, and says, "I understand you want to steal from us?" The man stammers that no, he just wants to borrow the book, and that he'll pay for it. She repeats back to him what he'd told us, then tells him that that is, in fact, stealing, and that she forbade us to check it out to him that day, and would be adding a note to his record in case he tried to steal from us in future. All the while he was stammering that he wanted to buy the book, not steal it...surely it's not stealing if he pays for it!

I looked up the cost of the book later that afternoon. He could've gotten a copy from half.com for about $0.75, plus a couple dollars' shipping. The way he was trying to "buy" our copy would have cost him about $37. Moreover, he could have just walked out with it without saying a word and we'd never have known(no detector-thingies at the doors), or said that yes, it came from the table, and he'd have been able to "buy" it for around $0.50. Instead, he came up to the desk and asked staff what the best way to go about stealing from us might be.

[SpyOne]

Well, first of all, I will need to use "aleged" and stuff a lot. It would be against corporate polict to use a word like "theft"against somebody who hasn't been convicted, no matter what I saw with my own eyes.

So, basicly I'm telling you a fairy tale. The fact that it closely resembles events I was witness to is a coincidence.

There were these 2 girls in their late teens (that is, somewhere from 16 to 19) who would always come into our store together. The store is a little convenience store, part of a national chain. It caught the attention of everyone working the appropriate shift that they would usually come in twice between 10pm and midnight. It caught my attention that they were always over-dressed for the weather: if it was warm, they had hoodie sweatshirts; if it was cool, they had heavy winter coats.
We had all concluded the same thing: they are stealing something. But what?

Then we noticed that a display of a singularly unpopular product (some orange flavored Bacardi beer-like-product in 6-packs) was getting smaller. As in, "Hey, did you notice one of these 6-packs is missing 1?" And then days later, "Hey, we're missing 3 now. And didn't there used to be 3 6-packs on the top? Only 1 now."

We can do the math when it is that simple: the girls were lifting single Bacardi beer-like-things. Now, to catch them.

Fortunately, we enacted Plan A and Plan B at the same time, because Plan A failed.
Plan A was: watch them like a hawk. I would unobtrusively stand behind the hot dog grill where I had a clear view down the aisle the Bacardi stuff was on. It was cleverly foild when the 2 girls seperated, and while one of them lurked near the Bacardi stuff wearing a parka on a 60 degree night, the other came up behind me and asked a polite but incredably stupid question. Something, anything that would make me turn around and face her while I replied, with the other clerk busy at the register.

Plan B, however, foiled them. Just minutes before the girls had entered the store, both employees had been standing in front of the Bacardi display. "I see 16 bottles in the 6-packs, and 2 unopened cases." "I see the same thing."
The girls entered, and began to loiter in the guise of shopping. Another customer came in, went straight to the register to ask for cigarettes, then left with his purchase, never passing remotely near the Barcardi stuff, coming at the closest about 20 feet away. Then the girls bought something and left.
The 2 clerks walked over to the Bacardi display. "Two unopened cases, and 13 in the 6-packs." "I see that, too." "So, we're missing 3. And nobody's been near here except those girls." "Yup."

Next time they entered the store, they were immediately told they were not welcome in our store. when the mother of one of them raised a small fuss, the assistant manager told her, "We suspected they had been stealing beer, and the manager said if we caught them doing it we were to ban them from the store. Three bottle of beer disappeared during a 15 minute window, and they were the only people to go into that aisle in that time."

Which is much closer to an accusation of theft than he's really supposed to go.

[SpyOne]

One I had forgotten:

Two men would come in, always at about the same time but never together. One drove up, one walked. I think they would alternate, to keep us confused.

Now, I'm not very good at faces. It was only when I recognized the routine that I realized it was the same two guys.
The one driving would ask for directions, often to someplace ridiculously far away (like, give the name of a city 2 hours west), and the one on foot would ask to use the restroom. This means that one was monopolizing my attention while the other was in the store but not on the sales floor.
(The plan was that bathroom man would slip out of the bathroom, along the store wall behing my back, and then slip unnoticed into the office through the open office door, where he would be able to steal cartons of cigarettes.)
The amazing thing to me was that they kept coming back (never on 2 consecutive days, but ...) despite the fact that my directions were getting more terse and perfunctory, and I always managed to hear the bathroom door open and turn to face bathroom man as he returned to the sales floor.

And when this is the third time in six days you guys have done this to me, ... well, it all starts to get suspiciously familiar.


It was the fourth or fifth time they tried it, and this had a modification to the routine: bathroom man didn't want to use the bathroom, he wanted to play the lottery, which requires that he fill out a play-slip using a golf pencil, and the sopt where there is a little bit of counter for you do that is ... right next to the office door.
Directions man asked how to get to Franklin. I did not say: "Well, you turn left at the next light, in about 3 miles get on I-264 West, stay on that until it ends, get on route 58 and that should take you to Franklin."
I said: "I don't know. We have maps."
I then stood at an angle, so I was half-facing my register but also could see the guy filling out his lottery slip.

Directions man had a question, and I turned to face him for about 12 seconds. When I turned back, Lottery man was not where he had been. "Excuse me a second" I said, and walked to the office. I stepped in the door and looked toward the cigarette cartons, and saw lottery man stuffing a carton of Newports down his pants. "Yeah. Okay. I'm putting 'em back," he said.
"You bet you are, " I said as I picked up the cordless phone off the desk and dialed 911.

Lottery Man boogied for the door. Directions Man did a good bit of playing the guy who doens't want to buy anything if it means filling out police reports, so I'll just mosey along while you talk to the 911 operator.

We were missing 6 cartons of Newports. After putting the one he had in his hand back, Lottery Man still had 6 cartons of cigarettes down his pants. He ran surprisingly well.

[ebonyknight]

Can't theft be assumed if the accussed is obviously trying to conceal merchandise or doesn't appear as though he's going to pay? Seems pretty unlikely that someone stuffing steaks inside their sweats and then heading for the doors is planning on paying for them.

(And even if he were planning to purchase the items, why the heck would you stuff 'em down your pants? Ugh. "Hey honey, we'll need to make sure to cook these a bit longer then normal - have to make sure to cook off all my ball sweat.")

It can be assumed if you want the guy to get let off in court.

In most places, as long as you are not damaging the merchandise, it's not stealing until you leave the premises without paying.

I remember one time, I was looking for batteries (one of the smaller watch ones) and got distracted. I put both the new battery and the old one in my pocket and went to checkout. When I put my hand in my pocket to pay, I noticed I still had the batteries. I bought them.

Now, if you had seen me "obviously" concealing merchandise, should I have been prosecuted right then and there? Hence my point. What's obvious to one person is not to another. I had no intention to steal, but someone observing me might have "assumed", I was.

Even though it doesn't immediately make sense, the laws are there for a reason.

[princess4life]

At one of the retail stores I used to work for the LP was a creepy looking skinny guy and he liked to hide behind racks and around corners, sometimes he would even crawl across the ground while watching someone that he thought was stealing.

Well one night there were a couple of Samonin teenage girls (the Samonin part comes into play latter) walking through the store acting really funny and slipping things in there coat pockets. The LP starts following them doing his peeking around corners and ducking behind stuff when he thought they noticed him. He figured they hadn't noticed him and as they walked out the front doors he followed them out to stop them . . . . He walked into an entire crowd of pissed off Samonin men. The girls had noticed the LP guy watching/ following them through the store thinking he was a creepy stalker they called there dad, now what I know about the Samonins I know, you don't mess with there family they are very protective. So when the girls told there dad about the creepy guy following them and watching them he told them to stay in the store until he got there.

To make matters work the LP reached to grab one of the girls arms without saying anything. The crowd of guys jumped him and beat the crap out of him, and they called the cops on him. I wish I would have been able to see the guys reaction when they found out he was LP and that his little angels had been shoplifting. So in the end though the girls where charged with shoplifting and the dad, brothers, and uncles where charged with assault.

I reminded the LP after that it might be better to follow shoplifters using the "eye in the sky" CCTV, less of a chance of being called a stalker.

[crazylegs]

I reminded the LP after that it might be better to follow shoplifters using the "eye in the sky" CCTV, less of a chance of being called a stalker.

One thing I have noticed by viewing a lot of CCTV is that a lot of it is totally useless. Unless you have full PTZ cameras and someone on the other end looking at the output there is no point having the system. Oh, a decent recorder never goes amiss either.

[Sedorna]

I wasn't actually involved in catching the shoplifter, but I did observe it. I was cashiering one day, and suddenly there came a horrible crash that made me jump. I looked back towards the doors, and there was a guy in handcuffs on the floor, with the LP guy and a whole bunch of olive oil. So, he stole something, and was cuffed and brought him back into the store. The thief had tried to run away, but ran into a display of glass jars of olive oil, knocking it down and breaking them, and falling down himself. He then tried to escape *again*, but LP guy--as well as the store manager--finally subdued him.

I'm not sure what he stole, or if he had to pay for the broken olive oil bottles. I do know that somebody spread some kitty litter on the oil, and placed a Wet Floor sign down until the oil had been absorbed by the litter and could be disposed of.

[d962831]

So I want to preface this with the face that I know it's my fault for the theft being able to occur and that I was an idiot in how I handled it.

what? What do you mean it's your fault? The only person whos fault it is is the guy who's stealing. There's no one else to blame. Don't be hard on yourself because other people are taking things that don't belong to them.

[Zoe Hates You]

Back when I was an undergrad working in the big university library, we had a guy make a run for it after setting off the doorway-detector beeping security thingummagigs. (What is the proper name for those, anyway? Is this a common word? Am I just having a brain fart?)

We are not allowed to chase people, but one nearby student took off after the guy, who was what my coworkers and I fondly and euphemistically referred to as a "public patron.*" I mean, seriously, this student gets a Gold Star and a cookie because he chased this thief aaaaaaall the way to a parking lot a few blocks away before tackling the guy, who immediately dropped the book and broke down in a spectacular display of desperate sobbing.

While the library circulates about 5 million books, MANY of which are rare, old, collectible, in special editions, etc. and could be easily sold for hundreds or even thousands of dollars (and which are all equally easy to steal), this genius picked a book that could easily be found on ebay for less than a buck.

Best part: The book he was trying to steal was a self-help book.



* Brief background: I have many, many stories about the so-called "public patrons..." The library is smack dab in the middle of a huge, isolated campus in a metro area with one of the best public library systems in the country, so the public rarely needed to come into academic libraries for stuff. As a result, the vast majority of people who come in who are not affiliated with the University were quite wacky.

[Alpha Strike]

It can be assumed if you want the guy to get let off in court.

In most places, as long as you are not damaging the merchandise, it's not stealing until you leave the premises without paying.

Even though it doesn't immediately make sense, the laws are there for a reason.

I would argue that stuffing perishable food down your pants is certainly going to damage it. Can you imagine a store trying to sell the food after that? "Yes ma'am - just ignore the crotch rot on that steak...."

I see your point and I understand that guilt isn't assumed until after a certain point - I just have a hard time imagining what other conclusion a rational person would draw from the SC's behavior.

[Shangri-laschild]

what? What do you mean it's your fault? The only person whos fault it is is the guy who's stealing. There's no one else to blame. Don't be hard on yourself because other people are taking things that don't belong to them.

Thanks. I left the door open for him to get in when it should have been closed and I should have not confronted him about it. I got a talking to from my protective cop best friend who found out that while I was alone and in no way able to defend myself, I confronted someone who was stealing when they might have been crazy enough to attack me. Not beating myself up over it anymore. Just wanted to avoid the "well you shouldn't have left the door open/that was really stupid to confront him" comments :-D

[Parrothead]

Not really a shoplifting story, but at the grocery store I worked at, a man tried to steal one of those "Georgia state law prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sundays" signs.

It was 11:30ish on Sunday, and the CS Manager, JD, was talking with one of the stock clerks on the far side of the beer, wine and cold cuts aisle (Aisle 3). I was walking down the front speedway looking for JD so I could go home. (Quick note, aisles 1 and 2 are shorter than 3-17 on the front end.) I was coming from the Deli/ Bakery section, near aisle 1, and I walked around the endcap at aisle 3 and almost walked into this guy. He steps back, and then asks me how much the signs were, or where he could buy one. I walked him down the aisle to talk to JD about that. The guy left after that.