Apprehension
I have mentioned already that I used to do a little security work for a retail company. I didn’t say much about the actual job at that point because I was saving back this little gem of a story. I also didn’t really get into the “meat and potatoes” of that job because, well, I was talking about something else.
That job was one of the most boring and tedious posts I have ever been set to do. You sit in a tiny, smelly room with about seven hundred closed circuit television monitors that give off roughly the same amount of heat as a small star. My first post was a smallish store in a very nice part of town. The store wasn’t on any bus line, so there was little to no shoplifting. Bus lines tend to “import” thieves from other, more sinister parts of town.
Occasionally I would make a shoplifting stop. What this means is that I watched somebody steal something on the closed circuit television and then let him or her get past the last point of purchase in the store. Once they were passed that last register, they were considered a thief by the law and could be apprehended. The apprehension usually went smoothly; I would stop them at the door, tell them who I was, and escort them back to the oven-office. There, paperwork would be done, photos taken, civil demand’s explained, and if they had been nice, I would let them go. If they had been an asshole during the interview, I would call the police. In the particular store, I am thinking about, I think I had to call the cops only one time.
I think I should probably explain what a “civil demand” and what being an asshole really means. A civil demand is basically a fine levied towards a shoplifter. In my state, a retailer can demand restitution from somebody who tries to steal from them. This restitution is a free-floating scale that starts at the actual stolen item’s retail price and can slide all the way up to three times that stolen item’s price plus a small additional fee that amounts to “court costs.” When I was assessing a civil demand, I usually made the thief pay the full (x3) amount. Why? Because first off, I wanted to punish the fool. Secondly, I was in a business of numbers; my performance was based on how much money I saved and also by how much revenue I brought in. Lastly, I gave thieves the full amount because I am also an asshole.
Being an asshole needs a little bit of explaining. Usually, when I am talking about being an asshole, I am talking about “the other guy” so I will start off with the apprehended thieves first. When some poor schmuck comes into a store and starts doing something stupid like grabbing up a whole cartload of steaks, I consider that something an asshole would do. I know what he is up too, he knows what he is up too, and the little old lady down in the Saran-wrap section knows what he is up to as well. Any time some person comes into the store and starts nervously acting suspicious, that person is an asshole.
But asshole goes beyond that. Most shoplifters, when caught, will just give up because smart people know that if they just act cool, they aren’t going to jail. Every once in a great while you get a moron. These guys want to fight you, they want to tear product off the shelves, they want to yell and scream and act as if they are having a heart attack because they think they can “embarrass” an apprehender into letting them go. This is not the case. If you fight or act up, there are several people in the store who will go to great lengths to punish you.
Back in the meat department, there are guys who are “this close” to being full butchers. They have a chip on their shoulder because they do all the work for the store’s butcher, but they don’t get the same pay the meat department manager gets. In fact, they get quite a bit less. This makes that whole troop of guys a rather angry mob. They are looking for any excuse to beat the hell out of some dumbass and they need very little provocation. Oddly, most of the people I know who works in a store’s meat department are very large. Also, those guys carry knives and since meat is a high-theft item, they take it as a personal affront if you try to steal it from their department. When I spot a shoplifter, they are the first people I call to help on an apprehension.
In the stock room, depending on what time of day it is, there is a bunch of stock guys. For the most part, these guys are just one-step up from being shoplifters themselves because most of them are out on parole and couldn’t find a more meaningful job. Because they work like a dog all day, they are usually in a bad mood. The boxes are dusty, the work is sweaty, and just like meat department guys, they don’t make very much money. They are mad at the world. Since they haul around heavy pallets and weighty boxes all day, they are usually half way fit. That’s not to say there aren’t some widebodies on the stock crew, there are, but that only makes them more of an asset when it comes to handling a shoplifter. If a shoplifter gets out of hand, I usually employ these guys to “help” me with my apprehension interview.
In a retail grocery store, despite what you might think or what you might have heard, managers do not make a ton of money. They put in huge amounts of time and even if they make a large salary, it only translates to about eight dollars an hour because of all the time they put in. Managers have a short temper, they expect results, and they are driven to being the best asshole they can be. These guys like nothing better than hearing that a shoplifter has been spotted in the store. They will clamber all over each other trying to get at the poor dope with the clock radio in his pants like a pack of rabid dogs. Also, since managers usually hang out at the front of the store, they are readily available to help out if any shit hits the fan.
Those are my assholes. Those are the guys who are going to be going after you if you try to steal something in a retail grocery store. Even faced with that type of odds, I still managed to get into a huge number of fights while I was doing security work. People plainly think that they “can get away with it” even when a butcher, wild eyed and covered in cow’s blood is chasing them around the front end of a store. With that kind of situation, it is better to just give up and get the whole thing over with as soon as possible.
The particular apprehension that I am thinking of involved none of these guys. Like I have said, the store I was in at the time this happened was in a nice part of town and wasn’t on any significant bus line. It was white-bread America and the store was about a block away from a white-bread high school.
On Friday nights in the fall, the high school would have its football games and tons of kids would be wandering the neighborhood until the wee hours of the morning. Around midnight, I was sitting in my office not really paying attention to anything when a large group of kids entered the store. I wouldn’t have given very much thought, it was Friday night after all and this sort of thing happened after football games all the time. But they were loud and obnoxious, so I got out my little camera controller and followed them around the store. They entered the candy aisle, oh this is gonna be good. They started grabbing stuff off the shelf and tearing into it, oh this is gonna be really good…
Finally, the whole troop had gotten enough candy, cola, and bags of chips stuffed into their shirts, they going to make a break for it. Little did they know there was a veritable army waiting for them to try getting out of the store. They came strolling towards the exit and were stopped by the full stock crew and the front manager, who if I recall correctly, was in the middle of a divorce. He was angry all the time. These kids were in the middle of a hornet’s nest and they didn’t even know it.
I greeted them at the just past the last point of purchase and told them that they should come with me. The usual chorus of “what?” and “we didn’t do nuthin” was followed by one of the troop, a girl, breaking down and crying right on the front end. I got them off the sales floor quickly and crammed them into my office. A quick head count brought the total number of shoplifters to sixteen. Sixteen apprehensions in one day was a pretty good haul for a whole week in that store.
Since they were minors and some of them were females, I had to get a female employee of the store to stand in with me during the interview. I also had to contact their parents and let them know what had happened before anything could go any further. The kids, the female employee and I all sat in that hot little office while I collected identification and then made the proper calls.
Most of the parents were shocked and astounded that their kids were caught shoplifting. Most of them also wanted me to scare the hell out of them as well. I was actually very happy to hear that, seeing shoplifters, scammers and grifters so often in that job had jaded me to the point where I didn’t think people cared anymore about their kids or themselves. I think I actually grinned at the kids when I heard one parent tell me “make sure he’s scared enough that when I get there, he’s thinking he’s going to jail.” That kind of grin only makes people nervous.
So I started handing out forms for the kids to fill out and then I called the front manager on the store’s phone system. I let him in on the joke, telling him that I was going to need his help for a bit. He immediately agreed and hung up. A few minutes later, he rang back in to my office phone with his cell phone. The ring sounded like the call was coming from outside of the store. We chatted a bit like I was talking to a police officer. I think I actually said the word “felony” just a bit too loudly, but the look on the kid’s faces was just too priceless.
“W-w-what’s going on?” Came a voice from the back of the cramped office. It was the girl who had been crying on the sales floor. I gave her a very stern, hard look and told her roughly “nothing…yet,” and went back to my conversation on the phone. The female employee had to stifle a laugh when she saw the dickeye I gave the kids.
After about half an hour of this sort of torture (I said “county workhouse” a few times), the parents started showing up. I met them outside, in the store’s café and we all sat down at the tables. The parents wanted the kids to stay in the security office so that they couldn’t hear what we were going to be talking about; some of the looks they gave their kids through the security room windows would have melted cheese. The acting was so over the top! It was all too funny and we all had to hold back our grins as we were punking the heck out of the teens. We then got down to brass tacks and I told them what had happened, assured them that I had it on tape and that I wasn’t going to do anything…unless they wanted me too. Again, I was happy to learn that the parents all wanted their kids to be punished.
I explained what a civil demand order was and then told them that because of the low worth of the items stolen, it wasn’t going to be very much money if they wanted to pay the fine and get out. All of them gave me the money for the civil demands and then one of the mothers actually put her head in her hands and made a total hammed up performance of fake crying. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from bursting. Finally, we let the kids off and let them out of the office. With all of their fines paid, the parents decided that they wanted me (me!) to give a stern lecture to them before they all went home. I gave them the usual spiel about costs and how their actions only drove grocery item prices up. I told them about how they could have been prosecuted for trespassing and that their understanding parents had really been put out by their behavior. God, I felt like an idiot.
Whatever I said must have struck a chord with one of the fathers though. He was some big shot lawyer here in town and he had a very successful firm that had handled cases for my store’s company. That following Monday, instead of going to my usual office, I received a call early that morning to show up at corporate headquarters to discuss a letter the father had sent. Also, I was to pack up my office because I was going to be working out of the headquarters from now on and that my responsibilities and pay were going to be increased greatly.
The letter was a basic one. The father thanked me on behalf of all the other parents and then went on to say that all of the kids had been given “home community service” by the parents. They were going to be raking leaves at a local park and then they were going to be having a picnic. I was invited to eat and not to rake. My stomach did a slow roll as I read this. They were turning the whole shoplifting event into a community awareness program! I was also asked to be the keynote speaker. I had to give the same talk I had given to the kids…only this time there was going to be many more people in a non-professional environment.
“What the hell did you say to those kids?” My boss asked with a grin. “It sounds like you gave a sermon from the mount…”
I didn’t want it to happen, but it did anyways…and I died a thousand deaths in that park. The manager of the store even donated hot dogs, ground beef, condiments, pop, chips and buns to the event. To this day, they still do a community service and awareness event in that park every year…and I get an invitation.
