After loading up his shopping cart, a thief proceeded to walk out the door without paying for the goods. Unfortunately for him, a feisty elderly shopper wasn’t about to let him get away without paying one way or another.
Video footage of an indignant pensioner accosting an alleged shoplifter went viral after the woman not only helped prevent the man from stealing but also said what every honorable customer was thinking. The encounter was captured by another customer at a Walmart in Canada and has garnered praise for good reason.
The video, which was taken at an outlet in Campbell River, shows a masked man calmly heading out the automated doors with a cart filled to the brim with unbagged groceries. Local shopper Darrell Johansen, who is recording the encounter, then calls out to the suspect, asking if he plans to pay for his items.
“You going to pay for that?” Johansen asks.
“Yeah,” the suspect replies.
“When?” Johansen asks as the suspect continued to head toward the exit.
Just before the suspect could make it out the door, an elderly woman pulls her cart in front of him and stops, blocking his escape. After glancing at the masked man’s cart, her unassuming demeanor suddenly changes. Within an instant, she takes matters into her own hands.
“Excuse me,” the woman tells the suspect, parking her cart directly in between him and the exit. “I’m fed up with this bulls**t!” she fumes as she grabs the suspect’s ski mask, aggressively yanking it until it slips off. “Take that f***ing mask off, a**hole!” she yells, exclaiming once again that she’s had “enough of this bulls**t!”
Shocked by the woman’s tenacity, the shoplifter makes no attempt to fight back. Instead, he once again tries to flee with his shopping cart. However, the woman’s spunk seems to embolden the man recording the incident to take action himself. With exposure on his side, Johansen continues filming the suspect’s face as he attempts to pull the cart back inside the lobby.
With a camera in his face and the police possibly on their way, the suspect makes one final attempt to leave with the groceries. Unfortunately for him, he’ll be walking away empty-handed. Defeated, he snatches his backpack out of the cart and takes off on his bicycle.
“F*** off, a**hole! Get out!” the woman orders.
“Take your s**t and go!” the man recording the video says.
“You just jack up the price for everybody else because of you a**holes!” the woman yells. “It’s about time they got caught!”
After the clip went viral, Global News reported that police confirmed the video’s legitimacy and were searching for the suspect. Unsurprisingly, the video received an outpouring of praise, especially for the unidentified woman.
Johansen says he called to report the incident on the non-emergency line but was told that nothing will be done unless Walmart calls to file a claim. Luckily, all he needed was a fellow fed-up citizen on his side.
“Whoever that lady is that ripped his mask off, I’ll take you as my partner in crime fighting anytime,” he wrote.
Police confirmed that there has been a spike in shoplifting incidents, especially cases involving people walking out with carts filled with unpaid groceries. While they don’t advise anyone to confront shoplifters, they expressed their admiration for the woman in the video.
The unnamed woman represents every honest, hardworking customer who is sick of entitled thieves ruining the cost of products for the rest of us. We need more people just like her.
