by Kevin Coupe
Doing what I do for a living, I read a lot of news stories about what happens in the retail world.
I’m not talking just about the innovations and inspirations. I’m also talking about the seamy underbelly of what happens in America’s stores and parking lots. I’m talking about the shootings and stabbings, the domestic disputes and the police calls, and wide range of stories that appear every day about life gone awry for people. It actually proves the notion that retailers serve as centerpieces for their communities, because almost everything happens there.
But this one, reported yesterday by a local Fox News affiliate, just deserved a callout. (You have no idea how many of these kinds of stories I read each week. Besides, it’s Friday.)
In West Whiteland Township, Pennsylvania, the story says, “police say they were forced to use an electric stun gun on a naked 6-foot-4-inch, nearly 300-pound man after he allegedly stole socks from a Walmart.”
That’s right. This 300-pound guy apparently got out of his car in the parking lot, took off all his clothes, walked into the Walmart, grabbed a pair of socks, put them on, and ventured further into the store. That’s when he was approached by police and when he resisted, he was stunned into submission.
Though not so stunned, I suspect, as the other people on line at the Walmart checkout counters, who had to wonder if this represented yet another change to the Walmart greeter program.
Doing what I do for a living, I read a lot of news stories about what happens in the retail world.
I’m not talking just about the innovations and inspirations. I’m also talking about the seamy underbelly of what happens in America’s stores and parking lots. I’m talking about the shootings and stabbings, the domestic disputes and the police calls, and wide range of stories that appear every day about life gone awry for people. It actually proves the notion that retailers serve as centerpieces for their communities, because almost everything happens there.
But this one, reported yesterday by a local Fox News affiliate, just deserved a callout. (You have no idea how many of these kinds of stories I read each week. Besides, it’s Friday.)
In West Whiteland Township, Pennsylvania, the story says, “police say they were forced to use an electric stun gun on a naked 6-foot-4-inch, nearly 300-pound man after he allegedly stole socks from a Walmart.”
That’s right. This 300-pound guy apparently got out of his car in the parking lot, took off all his clothes, walked into the Walmart, grabbed a pair of socks, put them on, and ventured further into the store. That’s when he was approached by police and when he resisted, he was stunned into submission.
Though not so stunned, I suspect, as the other people on line at the Walmart checkout counters, who had to wonder if this represented yet another change to the Walmart greeter program.
- KC's View:
