Some employees can tell when a customer seems up to no good.

If you were suspicious that an employee was trying to steal from your store, would you let the police handle it, or would you get proof and stop the thief yourself?

In today’s story, the employees know they need the help of the police when a thief tries to leave their store, but they’re not about to wait for the police to arrive.

Let’s read the whole story.

Steal from us? We WILL give chase.

Customer comes into the store.

Coworker from Hardware dept senses this guy is suspicious, and follows him as he “shops,” filling his cart with random stuff.

Customer goes to the bathroom, which is located at Automotive and requires asking an employee for the key to get in. Spends about 20 minutes in there before leaving.

Automotive employee immediately investigates the bathroom, finds empty product packaging in the trash.

He’s not really a customer.

“Customer” will now be known as “Thief.”

Automotive and Hardware employees head straight for the exit to head Thief off.

Thief brought his cart up to the checkouts but abandoned it at an unused register and heads for the exit.

Auto and Hardware block him; he shoves past them and books it once he’s out the door.

Now, the police are involved.

Auto and Hardware follow him.

Now, at our store, all staff carry radios. And our radios have good range, up to several kilometers.

They radio the manager who join them, and instruct the Customer Service Desk representitive to call the RCMP. (Royal Canadian Mounted Police)

She does, and relays information back and forth between the police and our staff in pursuit.

Now, a homeowner is involved.

Thief flees down the highway. Climbs over a fence into somebody’s yard. Sets off Homeowner’s dogs, drawing the attention of Homeowner.

Homeowner: “What’s going on?”

Our staff: “This guy is a shoplifter who just robbed our store”

Homeowner: grabs an axe “You tell the cops to come here; I’ll keep him from leaving.”

The thief was cornered.

At this point, after telling the Police what is going on and where to go, they instruct my coworkers to stand down.

Now, it was just about closing time, so sadly we won’t find out until tomorrow if they actually caught the guy. But considering he was cornered, back to a fence, faced with several angry dogs who were only being held back from attacking by a guy with an axe, I don’t think he was going anywhere.

This isn’t the first time we’ve chased down a shoplifter who thought he could get away on foot.

We don’t need to catch you, only keep you in sight long enough to relay your location to the cops.

That thief messed with the wrong store and entered the wrong homeowner’s yard. He probably didn’t expect it to be so hard to get away.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This is what I was wondering.

It was a robbery.

This person’s cousin chased a thief once.

This person is thankful for their store’s policies.

Here’s a warning.

This is not part of the job description.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.