Much like the bald guy saga, my Monday morning started with a tip from an employee. Apparently, again, when I was off during the weekend, they suspected a guy of stealing a CD player. As frustrating as it may be, I am the only one permitted to stop suspected shoplifters. In turn, even after they watcheed this guy walk into the bathroom, heard plastic cracking inside the stall, then found an empty package on the bathroom floor, they had to let him go. The only thing they can do in that case was get a good look at him and notify me, just in case they are dumb enough to return and try it again when I am working. I listened to the story, noted the approxmate time and filed it in the back of my mind. Later in the day I remembered the theft story and decided to wade through hours of video. Sure enough, there he is on my screen. Black male, wool hat, leather coat and black back pack.....check.
On video I see him enter the electronics department in the same aisle as the CD players. I see him walk out of the aisle with merchandise in his hand. I see him walk toward the men's room. I see him walk to the front desk, ask for his back pack and leave the store. It's a frustrating feeling when you watch a shoplifter doing his thing, and nobody is doing anything about it.
So, the day came and went and sure enough, no sign of the thief.
Tuesday rolls around and the morning is filled with paperwork, setting up a new computer work station in my office, and plenty of coffee. Early afternoon and I am thinking about taking my mandatory hour lunch. I take my walk around the store to see how busy we are before I leave the salesfloor, and just before I finish my lap and clock out, I glance over toward the front door just in time. Almost making me rub my eyes in disbelief, I see a black male walking through the door who looks awfully familiar. He had a black wool hat, three quarter length leather coat and sure enough, had a black back pack slung over one shoulder. I couldn't believe my eyes. Two idiots in a row decide to come back to the scene of the crime and try their luck against me again! I'm thinking this could be one hell of a technique, let one item go free, grab him up when he returns, charge them with both!
I watch from behind a jewelry display case as the man stops at the desk and drops off his back pack. What an honest shopper he must be?! I instantly go into my "undercover zone" as my coworkers call it. I watched the man's movements from a few aisles behind. I could predict his actions, and he was playing right into my hand. As he disappeared into the hardware aisle, to obtain a utility knife for opening plastic packages, I dropped back and motioned to a nearby employee.
"I am about to have a guy in a leather coat steal something from Electronics, and he's going to use the bathroom." the employee smiled as if he wasn't sure to believe me. "Just hang out by the men's room and check it when he comes out for me." I was barely done speaking when I darted off down a side aisle to get into a good position to observe the theft before he came back out and saw me.
Seconds later, the leather coat breezed by the end of my aisle and turned into the electronics department two aisles down. Like a good game of hide and seek, I shot out of my aisle and quietly snuck into the aisle next to his to get a good overhead look at what he was up to. And, as predicted, he removed the CD player from the hook and walked back out of the aisle toward the men's room. I glanced down the main aisle and nodded to the employee waiting to help. I repositioned myself to the mirror which allows me to see the mens room hallway. Within minutes, we were all playing cat and mouse again. The man emerged from the bathroom, this time with his hands in his pockets as he walked. He calmly but steadily moved from the back of the store toward the front, and little did he know, I was shadowing his every move in the aisle paralelling his. I glanced behind me and saw my helper approaching quickly and carrying my evidence, the empty CD player package he had found on the bathroom floor...as predicted. I grabbed it from his hand, quickly blurted out "Call the front desk!" and broke into a sprint down a side aisle that would get me to the front door, hopefully ahead of or at the same time as the thief. As I cleared the last shelf I saw him approaching the front desk asking for his back pack he had left there. With his attention on the employee at the desk, I snuck up next to him so i could pass by him as he turned toward the door. We met shoulder to shoulder at the exit...
"Oh sorry, but I do need to talk to you about the CD player you had in the bathroom." He stepped back in shock. The confusing look on his face as he eyed me up and down was priceless. "I work here and we've been watching you since you got here, can we step over here for just a minute and talk about this?"
As we stepped slowly to the side of the door I tossed y cell phone to the employee at the desk and said "Finish that call for me." She glanced down to the screen on my phone and realized the phone was already ringing at the 9-1-1 Center. I glanced left and right and saw two employees nearby keeping an eye on us. As I began to go through a series of questions, some important ones, as well as some bullshit to keep him talking, I could smell the beer on his breath. He tossed the back pack on the floor, unzipped it and offered me to search it. However, he never had the back pack with him past the service desk, so that would be useless. I continued gathering slow information, explaining that I would cooperate with him if he cooperated with me. He staggered slightly to the side and he speech became slurred.
Within five minutes, two police officers hustled through the door, and none too soon. I was running out of things to say that may be of interest to a shoplifter.
The mood changed,as it usually does when two officers take over the interrrogation. I introduced my new friend to the officers and quickly summarized the trip from the electronics department to the mens room, to where we were now. They picked up the back pack and rummaged through it thouroughly. They frisked him and went through his leather jacket and finally made the discovery. Inside the front right of the coat, burined deep inside a pocket was the newly stolen CD player. With that discovery, the cuffs came out and my buddy was then introduced to the walk of shame. The last I saw of him was the side of his face as the police car pulled away, just like a popporazzi shot of a cuffed celeb.
An hour later I received a phone call from the police station. An officer was advising me that it was his tenth arrest, five of which had been for shoplifting. Once again, I have made a difference in someone's life. A differencce, as in, he now has three square meals a day, a bed, a roof and a brand new address!
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