Premier Doug Ford shared a wild story this week about confronting an alleged shoplifter at Home Depot — and threatening to give the thief “a beating like he’s never gotten before.”
Ford said the incident occurred back in July at a plaza in northwest Toronto. He was driving his pickup truck, without a security detail, when he said he spotted an employee screaming at a “guy with a backpack.”
“I said: 'Screw this, I'm going after this guy,’” the premier said, at an Empire Club of Canada event. "I pull up behind him, I jump out of the car. I said: 'Buddy, what's in your bag?' 'Nothing's in my bag.' I said: 'Buddy, I'm going to kick your ass all over the parking lot. Show me what's in your bag.'"
Ford said the man pulled out a saw blade, which the store manager claimed was stolen.
“I'm just in a full-out rage on this guy," Ford recalled. "And then I went on to tell him, if I ever see him in the parking lot, he's going to get a beating like he's never got before.”
Was that the right move? If a citizen spots a shoplifter in action, should they follow the premier's lead and confront the suspect?
Rui Rodrigues is a loss prevention advisor at the Retail Council of Canada. During a recent interview on our Closer Look podcast, he said most stores don’t even allow their employees to pursue thieves anymore because of the increased risks.
“When you do decide to go hands-on, you don't know what that person is going to do,” Rodrigues told the podcast. “We see higher realization of weapons, somebody pulling a needle out of their pocket. So that whole hands-on approach has to be treated much more carefully because the risk has gone up.”
On the flip side, Rodrigues said criminals know they’re less likely to be confronted these days — and they exploit that fact.
“Now we see evidence of individuals just walking in,” he said. “They walk in, they make threats, they grab items, and they walk out knowing that nobody is going to detain them.”
You can watch the full interview HERE.
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