Irene and Dee were both supermarket security guards I worked with in the late 1990s.
Irene and the Reprobate
#62-06: night, under 10 seconds, first-person defender
“I was coming home from work—waiting for the bus—when this homeless man approached me and asked for a cigarette. I didn’t have a cigarette so he cussed me. He had a reprobated mind. I didn’t have no weapon so I got up and left. If I hadn’t there would have been an altercation.”
Dee and the Dopefiend
#62-16: night, minute plus, first-person aggressor
“This man had been pushing a shopping cart with his lady, who had walked out with a loaded backpack. When he came through without a purchase I approached him respectfully and told him he wasn’t leaving with that heavy backpack.
He was tall, born in sixty-three, darn near to forty. But he was two feet taller than me and didn’t want to go down. I tackled him in the deodorant aisle and we ploughed into the shelf. He wasn’t actually trying to hurt me. He just wanted to break free, but I got him cuffed. The police were there within ten minutes.
They wouldn’t take him in. He had eighty-six dollars worth of candy in that bag, and we could write-him up for the damaged deodorants. But he had a valid Maryland I.D., and hadn’t taken three-hundred dollars worth of product, so he just got a citation.
I treat the shoplifters with respect. They don’t get locked up—I mean how is a guy going to run out of a market with three-hundred dollars worth of food? This guy had drug problems, needles in his pockets. It is important that they look at you as a guy who was just doing his job. You don’t want somebody coming back to take a shot at you.”
