Shoplifter smiles for the photographer

From Houston Press Blogs 24/06/11:

You're an athletic woman who likely can easily outrun any employee of a mall shop. So even if they're scrambling after you yelling "Shoplifter!!" as loud as they can, you know you can make it to the parking lot and freedom.

Just one tip: Don't have your escape route go right by a professional photographer taking pictures.

One Sugar Land shoplifter didn't follow that guideline, and now police have a series of fine photos catching her escape as it happened. At no charge!

Photographer Barry Sigman ... [said]... "I saw somebody run past me followed by another person who was yelling, 'shoplifter' over and over again."

"At one point she threw some things into the bushes then ran 20 yards, and for some reason she went back for them. That's when I captured her face on my camera."

What did she throw away and go back for? Maybe she ditched the goods in an attempt to avoid detection and then indignantly thought she’d made too much effort to go home empty handed?  Or perhaps she chucked her iPhone by mistake? In any case, going back to rummage in the bushes proved to be her downfall.

"I flagged down the police and showed them a picture," Sigman says. "They were looking for a male, but they know now that it was a female."

Ouch! Talk about adding insult to injury. She’s not that manly looking is she? Actually, don’t answer that!

Anyway, this reminded me of a story I heard when starting a retail job as a student. There, the security guards joyously regaled us with the tale about how they were able to rugby tackle a shoplifter to the ground after she had voluntarily come back into the store to collect her kids who she had initially forgotten in the excitement of making off with several hundred quids’ worth of goods.

Oh well – that’s modern parenting for you.