Quote:
Originally Posted by Buff
We had codes paged over the PA.
Code 17 was hot chick alert. Code 17 aisle 34. And the horny guys would go check her out.
There was a code for cashier needing change and a code for floor staff to go jump in the cash register and help them ring through customers.
Then the fun one was 10-33.
If you heard 10-33 to the front or 10-33 to the mall or wherever else it was called then you ran as fast as you could to help arrest a shoplifter. Adrenaline rush! I'll share a couple of those stories a little later.
|
"10-33 to hardware emergency exit!" I went running across the store, nobody was in my path, I could see down the hunting aisle across the centre aisle and down one of the Hardware aisles. After a few steps I realized the emergency exit door siren was going off. It didn't take me long to get there. The floor staff kid in hardware saw a guy take some paint thinner and walk straight out the emergency exit. My counterpart part in sports and seasonal had beaten me to it and saw the guy step outside, put the paint thinner down just outside the door and quickly walk away. Looks like he was going distract us while a friend grabbed the pain thinner as we chased him down.
My counterpart part grabbed the paint thinner and shouted "Excuse me sir, your forgot your purchase!". He thought the guy was long gone and we were just going to recover the item and call it a day. Wrong! The guy turned around and came back. He was thankful that we noticed he forgot it and faked being sheepish because he forgot it. Did he really think the 5 of us were going to unwittingly help him steal? Apparently so. He walked up in to us and he was quickly told to step inside as he's under arrest for shop lifting. He went willingly, the guy who called him back ha helped loss prevention a few times so he knew what to do and soon the cops came and took the guy away.
Another time a co-worker in sports and seasonal working the evening shift with me saw a young teen pocket something from the hunting aisle. He told me about it so I followed the kid out the doors and I told him he was under arrest and he had to come back to the security office with me. Turns out the kid was 11. Unsure of what I had to do I called the Loss Prevention Officer at home and he told me to put the kid on the phone. I heard the kid say a few "Yes sirs," and "No sirs" and I'm sorry sirs". Then he said "Please call my mom, just don't call my grandma". Then the kid panicked and kept pleading that his grandma can't find out. He started crying and handed the phone back to me. Loss Prevention told me the kid seems to have learned his lesson, walk him out of the store and tell him to go to his grandma's house. I wonder if he ever told his grandma, we never called anyone.
Then there was the time one of the Loss Prevention Officers flagged me down. He had been following these two dudes around and they had hundreds of dollars of merchandise in their back packs (later turned out to be nearly $2500). Me being in the red CT shirt, I had to stay back and wait. The other guy he flagged down hadn't started his shift yet so he wasn't wearing the red. After a while the two dudes headed to the front doors. They didn't stop at the cashier, they just kept going. I was a couple steps back but the LPO and the coworker was hot on their heals. The dude with the shorter hair was several steps ahead of the long hair dude, so the LPO began to apprehend the long hair dude. A fight ensued. Long hair took a swing at LPO and LPO and coworker tried to subdue him. LPO managed to toss some handcuffs to me and told me to bring the other guy back. I'm 6'3" and was probably 220lbs and a regular st the gym at that point. This guy was 5'10" and a bit soft looking. So I think I intimidated him as I approached him and he didn't try to run, I simply asked him to come with me and he immediately complied. He asked what was going on and I told him that our LPO wanted to have words with him and his buddy. He tried to play dumb and said he didn't know the other guy and I told him he knew better than to lie to me. "Yeah, we're friends, sorry"
By the time we got back to the fight they had cuffs on the fighter and we took them to the security office where we called the cops. They arrived rather quickly, and after being regaled with the events the cops began to search the two shoplifters. We got lucky. They had knives and knuckle dusters in their backpacks. One of the cops pulled out a nice golden knuckleduster, commented on it and the long hair dude replies "I get to keep that, I paid good money for it!". The cop told him that he should have invested his money legally. Had those guys been prepared for a fight we all could have been hurt! Those two were from Ontario and were passing through, I think with a stolen car, and at least one of them had a warrant. Much later the LPO told me he went to court for those two and they didn't show up and nobody came to represent them.
One other time I wasn't around to witness, we had a retired RCMP officer who was the new head LPO. Tough looking mofo in his mid 50s. Apparently he followed a shoplifter out the mall entrance and walked up to him. Then he remembers waking up on the ground with several people looking down at him. The suspect one punch knocked him out and bolted. RCMP wasn't around for nearly two weeks after that.
I enjoyed helping out the LPOs. After a while we stopped hearing many 10-33s over the PA as the LTOe purchased some radios and would choose staff members to wear them so they could discretely call us for help.
I don't believe that is the approach to shoplifters anymore. Seems that it's safer to just let people walk out with items than to try to apprehend them. It's much better to have staff pay attention to customers and interact with them as a deterrent.
There was some interesting people get arrested during my time there. I was shocked to come to work and see a prominent business man in Lethbridge being walked to the security office in handcuffs. My supervisor had the hots for one regular customer. She was his dream girl until he had to help the LPO arrest her.