So this guy named Kevin (he declined to give his last name to reporters) was shopping at a Walgreens in Alameda the other day when he saw a man shoplifting by putting items into his backpack.
According to press reports and a video, Kevin gave his cell phone to a bystander and asked him to “film me,” which the bystander did. Kevin proceeded to tackle the shoplifter and put him under citizen’s arrest. The shoplifter, who was losing the battle because Kevin is a big man, called out to a friend of his, who threw himself onto Kevin’s back. Kevin flipped him. The two criminals got away.
The interesting part of this, for me, is that Kevin told the media that Alameda police told him they may charge him with assault. As I write this on Wednesday morning, the situation remains unclear.
Let me get this straight. A citizen—Kevin—sees a thug shoplifting, and decides to do something about it. He risked his own life and limb by doing so, choosing instead to stand up for law and order. In return for his act of bravery (and, some might say, patriotism), he now faces criminal charges.
It’s not right.
I understand why cops routinely warn us not to get involved in trying to stop crime. It’s dangerous; were I to interfere in the commission of a crime, I might get myself killed. But there’s another side to the coin: we’re allowing crime to run rampant. These shoplifters know there are zero consequences for their actions. I’ve been in the (now-shuttered) CVS on Webster when people were walking in, taking whatever they could carry, and calmly walking out—even as a security guard passively watched. I’ve been in my gym, 24 Hour Fitness, next door to the CVS, when a man walked in—twice—loaded up with expensive nutritional stuff—and walked out, without a care in the world, as the front desk staff looked on.
It’s insulting to one’s intelligence, one’s sense of justice and integrity, to allow this crap to go on. One has the sense of witnessing the demise of society: looters and vandals are free to prey upon the rest of us, and we’re told not to even try to stop it—to stand down while our city is debased, while the values upon which our country was built are destroyed. By passively allowing shoplifting to occur, do we not become complicit in the crime, co-conspirators who aid and abet in the criminal’s behavior because we choose not to stop him?
I don’t know what the answer is. I understand that the vast majority of us are not going to do what Kevin did. We fear for our own physical safety, and rightfully so. At the same time, I can’t help but admire Kevin. If I hear he’s being charged by Alameda County for “assault,” I hope he has a GoFundMe account. I’ll gladly contribute to it.
Steve Heimoff