KodyXO's video has everything going for it, from landscape-oriented 60fps footage to elderly ladies refereeing a wrestling match in a grocery store between a store manager and an alleged shoplifter. There's even an annoying photobomber!
EMPLOYEE: "You're shoplifting, you can't shoplift here!"
THE ACCUSED: "Yeah? Why not?"
EMPLOYEE: (momentarily baffled) "Wh.. Why not?"
The arrestee was reportedly charged with third-degree robbery.
Big retailers might let you walk off if the cops don't arrive in time, but stores can and do detain shoplifters. Rite-Aid's got its staffer's back, but one imagines there may be a chain-wide round of "why we just let them go" retraining days quite soon.
It's interesting to see how different media cast the events of the video. The local Hillsborough Tribune sticks to the facts, as it sees them…
The two fight over the purse, with the woman pulling, yanking and twisting in order to pry it from his grip. At one point the woman tries to punch the employee, and kicks him. He tells her that she is not allowed to shoplift in the store. Eventally the man wrestles her to the floor as she attempts to strike him.
"Ma'am, you need to chill out," a voice is heard on the video as the woman is on the ground. "You need to chill."
The woman screams "Let me go!" several times, but eventually relinquishes the purse to the employee as Washington County Sheriff's deputies arrive and arrest her. … "You can use reasonable force to detain someone," Reimann said. "But that's a subjective thing. He's trying to hold onto her, and she gets violent, so he takes her to the ground. Those are hard situations to call."
… Whereas Britain's seething tabloids do what they do. The Daily Mail:
'I'm gonna take you down for that': Shocking moment Rite Aid employee bodyslams female 'shoplifter' as she tries to punch him
The best line: "She continues to writhe under his grasp!"
