[Our lost prevention department where I work retail is very good at what they do. The day in question loss prevention was being manned by a retired marine, we will call him Jim.]
A young man was stuffing CDs and DVDs down his pants, into the lining of his coat, and anywhere else he could fit things. Jim was recording all this with the camera. State law prevented us from doing anything unless the customer tried to leave the store with the merchandise.
When the young man went to leave the store with his loot, Jim stepped in front of him with his arms crossed and asked: “Where do you think you are you going with our merchandise?”
The guy then opens his coat to what looked like a gun in a holster, and doesn’t say a thing. Jim is no idiot, unarmed, he moves out of the guys’ way, letting him leave the store.
The police come and get a copy of the tape, take statements and leave.
About fifteen minutes later they come back and take two guys, one of them being the thief, in hand cuffs to the loss prevention office.
Later, we learned that after leaving the store the thief went to the restaurant next door, met his friend and were hanging out at a window seat of the restaurant to observe the aftermath of what he had done. To their surprise the cops noticed them while doing paperwork in their patrol car in front of the restaurant and proceeded to go in and arrest them. It ended up being a bb gun in the holster, still, in our state that counts as armed robbery.
