A British Columbian senior is getting plenty of props for her efforts to stop a suspected shoplifter from leaving a Vancouver Island Walmart with a cart full of unpaid merchandise.
The incident happened around noon on Saturday at the Walmart in Campbell River and the footage of the incident shared on social media by Darrel Johansen has since gone viral.
In the video, a man filming follows another man, who is wearing a balaclava and pulling a cart full of products, out of the store.
“(Are) you going to pay for that?” the man asks, to which the alleged thief responds with confusion and continues to walk towards the exit.
As he nears the door, the woman realizes what is going on and stops her cart to block the exit.
“Excuse me,” she exclaims as she begins to pull at the man’s balaclava. “I’m fed up with this bulls**t.”
As she hurls more angry expletives at the man, he continues to try and pull his buggy out the door but is unable to do so.
She yells “get out” at him twice before the man gives up on the struggle and grabs what appears to be his personal bag from the cart.
“You just jacked up the price for everybody else because of you a**holes,” the woman says as the man makes a break for it with his bag and a bike. “It’s about time they got caught.”
It’s not clear whether the bike was stolen from Walmart or another store or rightfully belongs to the man.
Walmart’s company policy prevents employees from confronting, detaining or harassing anyone suspected of shoplifting in an effort to prevent incidents of violence from occurring.
Many who have commented on the story have expressed concern over this woman’s safety for that reason, but she has received plenty of praise for people who are sick of petty theft in their community.
“People need to stand up and do more of this seeing as our law enforcement and legal system doesn’t do it,” said one commenter on Johansen’s post.
The Campbell River RCMP did not respond to NowMedia’s request for comment.
