Decisions…

I was working by myself in a location and I had observed two males shoplifting. I knew that it would be a potentially dangerous situation for me because it was going to be two against one; so I came up with a plan. Both of the subjects had put on new store shoes so I decided to leave the camera room and take up a position outside the store. I could still see that both subjects had the shoes on their feet so I watched them through the front windows of the store. The location had a set of double automatic swinging doors so I stood just in front of them. The plan was to hold my keys and twirl them around my finger so it would look like I was looking for my car in the parking lot. I was standing just past the two guardrails so I could use them to keep the subjects from running to the left or right. As I kept one eye on the bad guys, I could see them approach the doors and exit still wearing the stolen shoes.

At this point, I quickly spun around and faced both subjects. I confidently identified myself as I grabbed each one by the front of their shirts. They both had a very surprised look on their faces and before they could react, I quickly walked them back into the store. We approached the security door to the office and I faced a new problem. In order for me to input the security code, I had to let go of one of the subjects. As we had been walking in, one of the subjects was very cooperative and the other was complaining about what was going on. Based on this, my decision was clear. I released the one that was cooperating and pushed the other one up against a nearby wall. As the one on the wall was momentarily distracted and protesting, I inputted the code as quickly as possible. I got the door open and when I did, I re-applied my hold on the other one and walked them through the door. Both subjects were safely under control and the entire incident was concluded without any problem.