A Formula For Apprehension

I had been sitting in the hole in the wall, they call the LP office, tiring of my efforts to organize and clean for an upcoming visit by my District Manager. He had never visited my office before, but I didn't want to be caught with my pants down, and wanted it to be nice looking, or to an acceptable level atleast, in the event he came up with a question I couldn't answer on the fly, and would require a peek into my files or desk. Every few seconds I would glance up at the monitor checkered by 24 different camera angles of the store, and would get right back to my cleaning tasks if nothing caught my eye.

Finally, something drew my attention to Camera 2. This was a shot of the Infant Formula aisle, an aisle which surprisingly had not drawn much attention so far during my term in office. When I first arrived at this position I had been told to watch for thieves of infant formula. For this reason, I positioned a camera directly down that aisle, overseeing the formula, and with it the diaper bags, baby food, and various related merchandise. For months, that camera produced nothing more than a glimpse of potential suspects passing through the Infants Department, on their way to other more profitable areas for them to collect loot. So in a way, it did help tracking people, but until this day, that camera produced no evidence of theft.

On this day, I noticed two females in their early twenties, one pushing a shopping cart. They seemed to be meandering through the kids' clothing racks, but deliberately turned into this aisle with what seemed like a mission. Both dressed in the same, tight jeans, nice heeled shoes, nice sweaters and large fashionable handbags over their shoulders. The cart pusher wore sunglasses. I too found the overhead flourescent lights throughout the store annoying, and often returned to my office where the only light I used was from the camera monitors, but I never found the need for sunglasses while on the salesfloor.

I am often asked, " What made you follow them, what caught your eye that told you they were going to steal something?" It's not something I can explain easily. It may be a glance up and down the aisle, it may be something they are carrying, may be the way they walk... hard to define overall. In this case, I was probably watching them because they were two attractive girls wearing tight jeans and nice sweaters. Nothing more, to begin with. As I watched them walk into the aisle on the monitor, I zoomed in and enlarged the screen. Within seconds the blonde was pulling cans of formula off the shelf and placing them into the cart. When she finished, and seemingly moved on with her shopping, the brunette stepped up and took formula from a lower shelf, and placed her cans inside the cart. The two didn't seem to speak to each other, it just looked like they knew what they were there for, and seemed like it was less of a "shopping" excursion and more of the "mission" I spoke of earlier.

With this observation, I left the office and walked quickly to the opposite side of the store where the inconveniently located Infants Department was situated. I walked straight through the department and into a stockroom, out of sight of any customer in the area. In the stockroom I have a "tower." A tower is a wooden ladder that leads to a wooden platform which forms a confessional-like booth, with a two-way mirror looking out onto the salesfloor. This tower happened to overlook the Infant Department and most of the apparel salesfloor.

I climbed the ladder and took my position in the tower in time for me to see the girls leaving the formula aisle, pushing the cart down two aisles and into the stroller and car seat aisle. If you picture these aisles, they are high displays of strollers and child car seats. This makes a wonderful place to hide if you want to do something without being seen. In this particular case, these girls wanted to remove the cans of formula from the cart, peel off the magnetic tags which would activate the alarm at the front door, and place their cans inside their handbags.

As I watched from the mirrored window above and behind them, the two kept an eye out toward the front desk for employees. I watched as both handbags were taken from their shoulders and placed into the cart. The blonde bent over and pulled out a box from under the display counter, and ended up tossing her magnetic tags under the counter "hiding them" from sight. The brunette paced ocassionally to the end of the aisle to make sure no employee was approaching. Little did she know, I was within ten feet behind her with a clear view of the activity. Little did I know, just out of my sight was an employee stocking shelves, who also thought to keep an eye on these two "shoppers." I stayed in this position as the two loaded their bags with cans of formula, and then finally pushed the cart, now empty, out of the aisle and back through the racks of clothes. At this point I saw the employee walking behind them several feet away, then darted to the left toward a phone hanging nearby. I heard her page me to the Infant Department, but I was not in a position to answer, I needed to keep an eye on the two girls.

I quickly climbed down the ladder, emerged back on the salesfloor, taking a quick shortcut through the car seat display aisle. I pulled out a box and sure enough found ten magnetic tags under the counter. I grabbed them up and continued my surveillance of the two girls now walking through the Jewelry Department. Just as I left the aisle, the paging employee met me and said, "Did you see that too?" In the next few seconds she stated she saw the cart loaded with formula go into the aisle, and then the empty cart come back out. I was getting more excited now. I had them on video, I directly observed them conceal merchandise, and I had an employee as a secondary witness. Adrenaline began flowing as I caught up to them walking toward the front doors.

Thinking they were just going to walk out with their handbags over their shoulders, like they came in, my walking became a hustle, but at the same time, I kept ducking behind racks of clothes in case they turned back around suddenly to see if they were being followed. I grabbed "something," I have no idea what at this point, from a nearby shelf and went into my "shopper" mode. I could now be seen and if so, I would blend in with every other miserable male shopper in the store.

As it turned out, they walked right by the front doors and into the Pantry Department. They collected a few items from the shelf, loaded the cart and then proceeded up to the registers. I took this as a green light. I too would have to check out as well, meaning, I could then walk right up behind them and get in line. From here I could see up close what the bags looked like, full or empty, and could overhear any conversation they would have.

From one foot behind them, I could see the bags were quite loaded, and I could almost make out the shape of a can pushing out at the sides of the bag. The conversation with the cashier was one of layaway questions. It seemed they were looking for a way to get back to the layaway counter for some reason. I, playing the annoyed male shopper, left the line and walked to the customer service desk, "to be rung up." I had to think how I was going to do this apprehension and notify management that I was going to stop them.

I turned back toward the register line, and saw both girls pushing their cart back onto the salesfloor. I then asked the employee at the desk to page the manager up front. I would need a witness close by when I stopped the girls. Suddenly, before any pages could be made, the brunette alone walked out of the pantry, through the unmanned registers and turned for the exit with the heavy handbag still over her shoulder.

"I have to stop this girl now...just watch me from here!" I yelled to the service desk employee as I walked out the main door to intercept the brunette coming from the register exit door.

I just got to her in time before she took a step outside. I quickly jumped into her path and scared the hell out of her initially.

"Excuse me!" I said trying with all I had to control the adrenaline rush. "I'm, with Loss Prevention here at the store..."

"Oh my god! You scared me!" were the first words out of her mouth as she stepped back into the vestibule, clutching the handbag under her left arm.

"Need to talk to you about the Infant Formula in your bag..." I started.

"I didn't take anything," she bagan, but quickly changed to, "I'm so sorry, I have never done this before, I was just trying to help out a friend who is a new mother."

After asking me if I would let her go if she told me about what she had done, I invited her to do just that back in my office. I told her, as I do most shoplifters, "we will have you out of here in just a few minutes, just need some of your information."

With that, I escorted her through the store toward the second office I use for interviewing and detaining shoplifters. While reassuring her it would be okay, since afterall, she admits this was the first time she has ever done such a thing, I scanned the salesfloor for an assistant manager I could use as a female witness in the office. Just before reaching the office door, I saw her stocking shelves, and snatched her up to assist me. (It began to worry me since I could not enter the office by myself with a female, but at the same time, didn't want her to think I wasn't in control of this situation either. Sometimes that's all they need to be uncooperative and try to flee on you.)

Inside the office, she stated she had never done anything like this before, and began opening the bag on the desk. I asked her to sit down and removed the cans of formula myself. In total, the cans in this bag added up to almost $200.00 of merchandise. Realizing the amount, I stepped out of the office and dialed for the Police Department. Up until this point, she had been very cooperative, and apologetic. Within minutes, the first police officer was at the door.

As I wrote the report, she asked if she would be let go since she admitted to the theft, and again, it was the first time she had done anything like this. In my head, I knew simply due to the dollar amount alone, she was not being released, this would definitely be a ride in a police car for sure.

"You said it would only take a few minutes! I admitted everything, can I be let go?" her tone of voice began to escalate and become angry.

"I'm sorry, am I holding you up too long?" I asked as I continued writing. "The problem I have is that when I said it would take a few minutes, I hadn't realized you cleared off an entire shelf of formula, I thought you took a couple cans...now my hands are tied." And as if on cue, a knock at the office door. "It's not up to me if you are let go now, it's up to the police. We will leave it up to him." I said very cooperatively as I opened the door revealing a uniformed officer.

"Well hi there! Let me ask you a question, she just took almost two hundred dollars of infant formula in this bag, I stopped her outside the door....can she go home now?"

The officer looked at me recognizing my sarcastic tone and smiled... "No, I don't think so."

Again she cried out, "But I was just helping a friend who just had a baby, I have never done this before in my life!"

And again, as the cuffs were being placed on her wrists...

"I was just helping a friend, I never did anything like this before!"

As they began the walk of shame through the store to the main entrance, the line changed a bit...

"My friend puts twelve cans of formula in her bag and I am the one getting in trouble!?"

Of course it bugged me to realize the blonde had the most loot, and it was the blonde I had to let go as I apprehended the brunette, but things seem to work out in the end. As we walked outside to the awaiting police cars, the cuffed girl looked out to the parking lot.

"My car is missing! I want to report my car stolen! She took my car!"

"The friend you were helping with the new baby stole your car?" I asked as she was placed into the back seat of the car. "You need to pick better friends!"

An hour later, the arresting police officer returned as he usually does with correct information on the people we arrest. Many times names are different than what was provided, ages, addresses, all have a way of changing once at the police station. In this case, she was honest about her name and address...but that one other thing she insisted on, not so much.

This was actually her third arrest for retail theft, twice before in Florida.

Welcome to Pennsylvania, it's illegal here too.