People who shoplift try to find any advantage that they can to get away with their stealing.

What would you do if you saw shoplifters leaving the store, and they had a baby stroller with them that they left behind when you started chasing them?

That is what happened to the loss prevention team in this story, but the stroller had a baby in it, so they had to watch it while the cops did their job.

TFR, I present to you: The Time I Adopted a Shoplifters baby for an hour.

Now over my loss prevention career at different institutions, I have been assaulted, spit on, seen a large woman remove $600 worth of clothes from her fat rolls, and even ran a couple of miles to grab a suspect.

But this is the only time I have ever seen a parent neglect a child.

What a sad way to live.

Now shoplifters using children is nothing new. And usually it incurred a charge of child endangerment.

However, sometimes the cops would let it slide if the person co operated and the child was so young they had no way of knowing what was going on. That being said, we begin our tale.

I bet they get good at spotting suspicious people.

One fine sunny afternoon, I am working at (a store we will call GdNickels), doing my LP thing. My female co worker, “Stacy” is watching these two teenaged girls, pushing baby carriage around, with a blanket covering the inside of the carriage.

The two girls are acting suspicious, removing clothing without looking at size, style, or price, and taking multiples of each item. Classic signs of shoplifting.

You have to watch these people carefully.

The two girls eventually proceed into a female fitting room, and my co worker goes to get ready to verify that they did not exit with the items and that the fitting room was empty.

Now our store was two stories right in the middle of the mall, and this fitting room was in the top story right near the exit into the mall.

They aren’t even making it hard to know what they are doing.

Sure enough the two girls exit, not a single piece of clothing to be seen. Stacy goes in, verifies the stalls are empty, and right at this time the girls are exiting. I tell Stacy that the STOP is good, and to proceed.

Now our LP office was on the other side of the store, near the parking lot. So, I had to exit the office, and proceed through the store to get to my co worker in case anything happened, without running or causing a scene.

This must be a very exciting job sometimes.

As I am rounding the final corner at a fast walk, I hear Stacy yelling “HEY STOP COME BACK”. I round the corner, and out in the mall, about 40 yards away I see Stacy with the baby stroller, no suspects in sight.

WHAT!?

I run over and Stacy is standing there going “They both ran, opposite directions, but I didn’t go because there’s actually a baby in here.”

Wat?

This is absolutely inexcusable.

They actually left a real live baby, presumably one of theirs’s, in the stroller when they ran. I told Stacy to call the cops, bring the kid inside and take care of it, and I’d chase after one of them.

Stacy pointed the way of the food court and said “The fat one went that way.” Like a slightly overweight lion, chasing after a gazelle the size of a hippo, the chase was on.

Stores should always chase down shop lifters. It’s the only way to get them to stop.

Now our company, as do most, have rules of when you can and cant engage a shop lifter, and when you can and can’t give chase.

As with most stores, if they go into the public parking lot, you can’t chase, as its a liability.

However in the mall, we had a good standing, so as long as they were in public mall space, and I wasn’t knocking old women and 3 year old out of the way, I could chase them to my hearts content.

He seems confident that he will catch her.

At this point, Suspect A, who we shall name Queen Hippo, had a 20-30 second head start. But our mall was straight, so I could see her waddling in the distance.

I take off, gaining ground trying to not run into anyone. Mall security sees me and starts squawking on the radio.

LOL, you have to laugh at yourself sometimes.

At one point, I almost hit someone and end up stopping short and falling head first and sliding a short distance, at which the phone kiosk guy yells “HE’S SAFE” to chuckles all around. I admit I had a laugh too as I got myself up and took off running.

Anyways, I catch up with the girl right in the food court. As I’m commanding her to stop, she turns and starts attempting to swing at me.

At least they were able to catch one of them.

Fortunately for her, the police who are always in the mall have been alerted and are right there, so they grab her before I can. She starts yelling that I am chasing her, tryna “grab on her goodies”, and they should “get dis white boy offa me”.

The cops naturally just look at me and say “What have we got?’ I tell them shoplifting pants and such.

Shoplifting is the least of her crimes.

She, of course, continues to say she doesn’t know what we are talking about and that I’m tryna touch her. So that’s when I drop the big bombshell:

“Ok, we will get this sorted out, but first we need to know. The baby you abandoned, is it yours or the other girls?”

Even the cops were surprised.

The cops naturally have a look of “WAT?” on their face. I explain the two girls left a baby behind, and that Stacy had it.

The girl starts saying its her baby, and that her friend said she’d watch it while she ran from me tryna grab her goodies.

What a horrible mother.

I explained that her friend took off too and left her baby there. She says she doesnt know what I’m talking about and I’m lying. The cops naturally tell her to shut up and start dragging her back to our office.

I radio Stacy en route, let her know we are on our way back. She informs me the kid is ok, and we have Queen Hippo’s license in her purse so its even more proof.

I feel bad for the poor kid.

We get Queen Hippo back in the office, cops search her, we sit her down. Show the cops everything we have, they interview Stacy to get her side with the baby, who was like 8-9 months or so.

So the cops sit down, and explain to Queen Hippo that Department of Child Services are already going to be contacted for an investigation. But if she lied to them even once, and didn’t tell them everything, then they would call them now to have the baby taken away within the hour.

At least she is smart enough to talk now.

Naturally Queen Hippo broke down, told us who her friend was, who they were stealing for, and even where they were fencing the goods they stole.

Full on ORC info that was gold to us.

They should really charge her regardless.

Her friend was contacted and told to turn herself in by the end of the day or she’ll be charged with child endangerment as well.

Queen Hippo had her kid taken away while they did the investigation (Sorry no info about how that ended up), we got our merch back, a ton of ORC info, got to play with a cute baby for an hour while the cops did their thing, and a quick workout on my part.

All in all a good day.

Wow, that is quite a story. It is sad that this is the way some people live their lives though. This baby has little chance of growing up right.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

LOL, I can just picture it.

That was so funny.

They always lie.

Sad but true.

I had no idea.

Lock these ladies up!

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.