Just saw a guy at the grocery store get chased, cuffed & stuffed for stealing....

[Ghost in the Machine]

He ran out of the store with his loot and a couple of employees chased him down. As bad as I hate a thief, I offered to pay for his stuff, as did a few other shoppers, because I thought the guy was just hungry and desperate. Turned out that the guy had the money in his pocket to pay for what he stole. I guess he wanted to use the cash for something else.



What did he steal?




A bag of dry pinto beans... $3.99! The stupid fucker went to jail over a friggin' bag of pinto beans....

The saddest part of all this is that I know the store owner, and he would have GIVEN the dude the beans, and more, if he would have just asked for them. This is a small, independently owned grocery store that buys out overstocked stuff and sells it cheap. It's called the United Grocer's Outlet (UGO), located in Athens Tenn. When I've done my "feed the homeless" thing for Thanksgiving the past couple of years the owner of this store has always donated up to $200 worth of turkeys, hams and all the fixings I could gather up for what I needed. I always shop at this store, spending at least $90 - $100 week there. I've seen them give food to people who didn't have money too many times to count....

Things like this are going to happen more often, but someone who is truly hungry and desperate should at least *ask* a manager, or owner if it's a small store, if they could get a few items. I was surprised to learn that many of these stores, even the Bi-Lo (which is now out of business here), have a set amount that they *allow* managers to give away to needy people.


Peace,

Ghost

[ddeclue]

1. If it's his first offense he'll probably get probation and a fine.nt

[virgogal]

2. He's a thief. Period.

[TBF]

8. What if your children were hungry? Or your grandchildren?

Would you be able to watch them starve? Sometimes things are not so black and white.

[virgogal]

9. Of course not-----I'd beg if I had to,but I wouldn't steal.

[riverdeep]

17. Don't be so sure.

I don't know what I'd do. No, actually, I do. If it was a choice between going really hungry or stealing, I'd steal. I'd try the begging or street entertainer approach first I suppose, but then...

[LooseWilly]

34. I stole. And I wasn't even all that desperate.

I was on the streets in Spain. And the guys on the next park bench over were too. They had to shoplift, because their credit card was disabled by floods in Poland. I was on the park bench because of French vacation season. We all travelled the streets of Barcelona, shoplifting our supplies as a team. I bought stuff as a distraction, while we all collectively lifted the balance of our supplies.
Begging was insufficient, half the time, to get a cigarette off a smoker...

And, as it happens, the experience of having to shoplift for supplies probably saved lives... as otherwise I'd've had no counter experience to the "Travis Bickle effect" I suffered while driving a cab in Oakland... and I'd've probably started carrying one of my guns with me and probably killed some asshole who tried to run off rather than pay a fare...
Instead, I couldn't help but realize that I'd been there... so I didn't shoot anyone in 10 years.

Shoplifting for the greater social good...

[RedCappedBandit]

40. well aren't you special

lmfao

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

41. Ever read the book

"Les Miserables?"

[Rage for Order]

12. I'd use the cash in my pocket to buy them food

Since the OP stated:

"...I offered to pay for his stuff, as did a few other shoppers, because I thought the guy was just hungry and desperate. Turned out that the guy had the money in his pocket to pay for what he stole."

[emilyg]

20. He had money in his pocket.

[Fire1]

26. Typical troll.

[sweetpotato]

37. Sounds like moral development is stunted in this one

http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/kohlberg.htm
snipped from above:

Heinz Steals the Drug

In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug-for his wife. Should the husband have done that? (Kohlberg, 1963, p. 19)


Stage 1. Obedience and Punishment Orientation. Kohlberg's stage 1 is similar to Piaget's first stage of moral thought. The child assumes that powerful authorities hand down a fixed set of rules which he or she must unquestioningly obey. To the Heinz dilemma, the child typically says that Heinz was wrong to steal the drug because "It's against the law," or "It's bad to steal," as if this were all there were to it. When asked to elaborate, the child usually responds in terms of the consequences involved, explaining that stealing is bad "because you'll get punished" (Kohlberg, 1958b).

There you go.

[we can do it]

3. just stupid

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Really sad

and it doesn't really make sense, since he had the money. Because he did, I'm glad he was caught. Your kindly store owner can't afford to have people who can pay stealing his products--especially since he's the kind of guy that will give food to those who don't have the cash.

[Sanity Claws]

5. Dry pinto beans

This was not something to rip open and eat in the parking lot. He was going to take it home and cook the beans. I'll bet there are people at home who are hungry.

[Toucano]

33. And the money he had "to pay for it" might have been needed for gas or

something harder to steal.

We don't know how much he had.

[sandnsea]

6. Our Grocery Outlet isn't union

So I have made a policy of not shopping there. BUT - they do an enormous amount for the community, like you say, so it must just be some kind of policy with all of them. OTOH, this is the food that used to go to food banks, so maybe they're just trying to keep that little secret out of the mainstream so people will keep doing business with them.

There's really next to no reason to ever steal food in this country. Not unless you somehow got blackballed from the local food bank. That would take some real doing.

[slampoet]

7. $3.99 for dried pinto beans is the real robbery.

[hasidic acid]

10. Bingo! Four bucks ought to buy 10 pounds or so.

But since beer is cheaper than soda or milk, not much about prices makes sense these days.

[Canuckistanian]

16. Welcome to DU!

:toast:
:hi:

Love your name... :rofl:

[SammyWinstonJack]

38. No kidding!

[AnnieBW]

11. Paging Inspector Javert...

Inspector Javert to aisle three... Jean Valjean is trying to steal some bread.

[slackmaster]

13. He'll get three meals a day, clean clothes, and a warm if not comfortable place to sleep in jail

It sounds like it might have been intentional - Get yourself arrested but not over anything very serious.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. He was probably one of those gallant CEO's working for a dollar a year.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Canuckistanian]

15. I saw a guy caught and arrested for stealing $3 worth of fuses

And when they told him to empty out his pockets, he had over $200 in cash.

Some people, I think just get off on the "thrill factor" of stealing. Sometimes it doesn't even matter what they steal.
I knew about people like that.

But it's a high price to pay when you're caught, especially if you're trying to lead a straight life.

[riverdeep]

18. LIke that acctress, what's her name, who was a klepto.

She starred in that one movie with that guy.

[tammywammy]

22. Winona Ryder n/t

[Canuckistanian]

24. It's not exactly kleptomania

I'm talking about regular guys who don't even have parking tickets, but who get off on petty thefts.

They don't have an obsession, it's more like a tiny protest against social norms.

I don't know, Maybe they are kleptos by the standard definition.

[riverdeep]

19. And yet, executives can walk away with millions of our money

scott free. And they don't get cuffed or nothing.

Lesson: steal big.

[snappyturtle]

25. Bingo! eom

[TBF]

36. Excellent, rec this post. n/t

[SammyWinstonJack]

39. .

:thumbsup:

[Duer 157099]

21. I sometimes wonder if homeless people do this so they can go to jail

I know, it sounds crazy, but I'll bet some do it. In fact I know some do it. I'd probably do that if I were in such a position.

[Codeine]

23. Don't waste your sympathies on shoplifters.

I manage a small indy grocery and things are tight as hell in our business. Profits - actual after-expenses profits, not markup - are meager even at the best of times. Shrinkage and theft hurt more than you imagine.

And yeah, if a needy person asks me I will always kick down what I can, often out of my own pocket. That's human decency.

[riverdeep]

30. You wouldn't believe the internal shoplifting that went on the one time

I worked retail. It was a Sears many many years ago. I was a kid and saw teenagers walk into the backroom and take whatever. From tools to batteries. One guy in his thirties actually was caught selling tires from his home he ripped off. I didn't say anything or took anything, but it blew my mind how brazen it was.

They say in some places thirty percent of our cost is from theft, which is overwhelmingly an inside job.

[Liberal_in_LA]

32. yep. The employees steal the most

[pipoman]

27. Maybe he is just a klepto

or is mentally disturbed. I know a guy who is a multi millionaire who was recently caught stealing batteries at the grocery store. He has Alzheimer's, he would have never done that 5 years ago.

[oldlady]

28. How old were those clerks?

I ask because I once saw teenage clerks chase a woman down and hold her against the trunk of a car while they waited for police to arrive. I was coming out of the store with over $300 worth of groceries. I was so disturbed to think of what these kids (about 15-16 years old) were being asked to do for $6.50 an hour, that I returned all of the groceries and the store had to re-ring them to return my money. I'm not in favor of shoplifting, but I'm also not going to support any store that sends kids out to do things that may be dangerous and likely to warp their character *sigh*

[tuckessee]

29. The kids aren't asked to chase shoplifters. Quite the opposite.

Regular employees (non security guard) are almost universally discouraged from chasing or physically restraining shoplifters for safety (liability) reasons. It's usually a violation of store policy and I've worked places where employees have been fired for leaving the store in pursuit of shoplifters.

The kids you saw do this likely did so on their own volition. A spur of the moment type thing.

[Codeine]

31. I've chased people blocks.

Adrenaline and anger at feeling "punked" can make you get a little crazy. And when one of them swings on you all hell can break loose.

[LooseWilly]

35. Ohh yeah, and the idea of $3.99 for a bag of dry pinto beans... that store oughtta be prosecuted !!

That price is fucking ridiculous, even in California.

I'd be tempted to steal the bag just to tell the store people that they're assholes for charging that for dry beans. (well, unless it's a 5 kg bag or something...)