When you work at a retail store, you often have many duties that you have to perform, sometimes including trying to discourage theft.

What would you do if you saw someone trying to walk out of the store with a stolen TV?

That is what happened to the retail worker in this story, so he tried to stop him, which led to a dramatic car crash, a police chase, and a big arrest.

Check it out.

Stolen TV, followed by Dukes of Hazzard jump and police chase

So, I used to work in a big box store, with a garden center department that was basically large enough to be it’s own store, and it more or less ran that way.

For short background, I had been there for a few years, and even though I was technically just a Sales Associate, I basically had done everything in the building at one point or another, short of being an assistant manager.

Hopefully he got paid for all of this responsibility.

Because of this, I was often depended on to keep the department going all by myself for hours at a time, which is NOT how the garden center is supposed to run.

The garden center has its own cash registers, an indoor part within the larger store, a large greenhouse-type room (think the size of a basketball court) which housed those registers, large outdoor furniture sets, grills, lawnmower displays, you get the idea.

There’s a door by the registers with those theft beepers (I never bothered to learn what they are actually called), which leads to a large fenced in patio outside which housed our flowers.

At the fence line was a gate which led in to the garden center from the parking lot, with another set of the theft beepers.

Per company policy, that fence was the last point I was allowed to try intervening in a possible theft.

Once they passed that fence and stepped into the parking lot, my hands were tied.

Multiple employees were needed at all times to run smoothly, between running the register, watering flowers, watching the gate, and stocking/making sales on the floor.

When we were shorthanded (which was often), thieves took this opportunity to use my department to be, well, thieves.

It sounds like he was very busy.

That leads to this story.

I was left to cover the department on my own for a short time one day.

It was a long time ago, but I believe I actually had help with me, but they were on their break, which meant I had about 20 minutes on my own.

This meant being the sales associate for the entire area, as well as being the lone cashier.

We had to take customers that had merch from the entire store, so often, there would be consistent customers ringing out, even if the garden section itself had a slow sales day, which basically locked an associate on/near the register.

I had a couple customers in line I was ringing out, and as I was finishing with one nice lady, I noticed a man walking toward the registers with a large TV in a cart.

I knew this was obviously not paid for, because he was not accompanied by an associate to the parking lot, which was our store policy. I asked the man if he had his receipt, and he ignored me and continued walking as if I hadn’t said anything.

As I was handing the receipt to the nice lady, I said much louder, almost shouting.

Oh, you know he had no receipt.

“Sir, do you have a receipt for that??”

He didn’t turn around, but yelled “It’s in my car, I’m going to get it!” and said that without even slowing his walk. I darted from behind the register out the door to the patio behind him (the theft beepers went off, of course).

I got next to him just before he reached the fence and, still playing dumb, asked him for his receipt a third time.

He now added to his story “I was coming to return the TV but I left the receipt in my car.”

I knew that was a lie, because there would be no reason for him to walk in the front door, go to customer service, realize he didn’t have his receipt, then walk around the building to go out the garden door, when he would’ve already been at customer service, right next to the front door.

Additionally, he also would’ve been asked to leave the TV at customer service while going to the get the receipt, to avoid this entire interaction we were having already.

Honestly, it shouldn’t be the job of a regular employee to try to stop thieves.

I placed my hand on the cart and kindly suggested that I could hold the TV in garden for him, so he could get the receipt, but he pulled the cart away and said “no thanks, I got it” and quickly rolled into the parking lot, out of my jurisdiction.

This was the first time I had tried to confront a thief myself, and I had done it completely by the book, but I still had anxiety and blood pressure through the roof because of how terrible I am at confrontations.

I just stared at him riding the cart into the parking lot for a few seconds, my mind and body shaking both in a haze, in anger, frustration, disbelief etc.

The nice lady I had just finished ringing out, whom I had completely forgotten about even though it had only been about 15 seconds tops, came up next to me, and praised me for doing a good job in noticing the man, assured me I did everything I could, and then proceeded into the parking lot behind the man to get his license plate.

The man who was behind her in line, who I hadn’t taken care of yet, came up as well, said he was an off duty fireman (not sure how that was relevant, but he was nice anyway), and said if he needed to stay behind as a witness he would.

I thanked him, and we proceeded back to the registers in the greenhouse to get him rung out, and so I could call a manager to inform them of the theft.

Good thing the cop was there!

Super conveniently, one of the CSM’s (customer service manager) came strolling into the greenhouse (slight sarcasm, because it actually was convenient he was there, but I would’ve preferred he was in there 60 seconds earlier).

I and the fireman informed him of what had literally just happened before he walked through the door, when we all stopped, because we heard screeching tires, followed by a police siren.

Unbeknownst to me, a police officer was in the parking lot, and witnessed my entire interaction with the man at the gate, and the nice lady going to get his plate.

We looked back towards the front, and saw a bright red Mercedes CLS peeling out from the parking lot, driving back toward us, then along the side driveway of the garden center toward the automotive center at the back of the building, parallel with the side street.

Most of the stores from my company have a parking lot that is completely paved over surrounding the entire building, so a car could circle the building if they got lost, or whatever.

Ours wasn’t like that, however. Beyond that automotive center was a tall grass bank dead end.

The police officer, knowing the Mercedes had just trapped himself, smartly just blocked the entrance at the front a few feet from us, right at the front corner of the garden center fence.

Or so we thought.

That would be fun to see. I hope the security cameras caught it on video.

While looking at the cop car, we all heard a loud crash, and turning our heads back toward automotive, saw the taillights of the Mercedes disappearing over the other side of that bank (probably ~10 foot tall hill) onto the main road, a bona fide Dukes of Hazzard flight, with part of his front bumper still crushed against the curb he just hopped in the parking lot.

The officer took off (through the actual exit, not the fictional one the Mercedes just made up) down the road after him, and that was the end of that. For now.

I was very glad we (manager included) all saw that, because that was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, and I don’t know how many people would’ve believed it if I was stuck in my department alone.

Just then my co-worker came back from his break, and I broke out laughing because of how he had just barely missed that entire thing.

At least the manager is trying to fix the problem.

The nice lady came back in, absolutely furious, because the guy had almost ran her over while she was trying to get the license plate.

The manager took her and the fireman in for a statement, and I went to my (now much needed) break.

The manager called for a door greeter to be added for the rest of the shift (what should’ve been normal practice all day anyway), so he wasn’t left alone while I was on break.

I finished my shift, did a little shopping, and while leaving the store, noticed the front end assistant manager talking with a couple police officers.

Between them, was a shopping cart with that exact TV in it. I felt satisfied they caught the guy (my assumption) and left work with an amazing story.

But that wasn’t all.

That assistant manager caught me about a week later and pulled me aside, and praised me for how I handled the entire situation.

He and the police had gone through every camera and saw everything, from his grabbing the TV in electronics, wandering different places through the store to look casual, to the interaction in the garden center.

He told me I did everything right and by the book. He then informed me of what happened after I saw the Dukes of Hazzard in front of my eyes.

I’m surprised the car still ran after that jump.

He led police on a chase through two cities, and eventually ditched the car (TV still inside) at a car dealership. He ran into the dealership and tried to steal a car from them, but was unsuccessful.

Eventually, he fled on foot, and disappeared, leaving the car and TV. The point I had seen him talking with the police, was after they recovered the TV from that car and returned it, but the man hadn’t been caught.

Police decided to leave the car where the man had left it, in the parking lot at that dealership, and set up a sting.

That night after he left it, he tried to sneak back into the dealership to get the car back out, and as soon as he tried to get in, was surrounded by police and arrested.

Why am I not surprised.

Shockingly, it wasn’t his car in the first place /s. It belonged to an acquaintance of his, who was in jail at the time of the TV incident.

So, I don’t know how many charges the guy got, between grand theft auto, theft from the store, damaging property, trying to steal ANOTHER car, sending police on a high speed chase across the county, etc.

But, I’d like to think that me doing the right thing and trying to stop him, was the catalyst that led to him getting caught, because he would’ve otherwise left the building quietly and consequence free.

Wow, what a crazy story. That must have been really cool to see, even if it would have been somewhat scary.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

It must have made the local news.

Yeah, if they sold it at all.

How can you get in trouble for following policy.

That could have been very dangerous.

Almost, but not quite.

That sounds like a very exciting day at work.

And that’s not always a good thing.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.