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But which was it?

It makes no difference as a persons life is in danger in either case.

the car wasn't parked ~ rather, it pulled up in the apron/pickup zone in front of the store and the women ran out and hopped in

Are you inferring that the thieves "hopped" into a moving vehicle? You really jump to conclusions, don't you?

hmm, let's say you are visiting the lower 48 one day and you happen to come upon a Walmart. it's a big building with usually two sets of large doors ~ on one end the doors lead to a vestibule that has carts, and then you go inside and there'll be dry goods. over at the other end there's a set of doors that lead to the grocery section.

When you go inside there's a bank of cashregisters end to end. Some smaller module stores have only one set of large doors, but there's still always a second entrance and exit ~ that's against the possibility that a Gypsy has his family with him and wants a separate set of doors available for the womenfolk to enter separately in a dignified manner.

Walton always left his parking lots open to overnight parking by travelers and Gypsies. I don't know if he was a Gypsy himself but my Great Grandfather always followed the policy of feeding the travelers or the gypsies who camped on the edge of his farm because they really would paint his barn with paint and leave his hogs alone. There are traditions here.

So, there's this big ol' store with two entrances and exits, and out front there's an apron area where folks drop off others, or leave their baskets, or stand and wait for a ride ~ this is pretty much the standard operation in urban areas.

Like this: http://i.cnn.net/money/.element/img/1.0/sections/mag/fortune/global500/2007/snapshots/walmart.jpg

There are variations ~ but there's traffic passing in front of the store all the time, and there's an apron area clearly marked so you can come in and pick folks up ~ they allow momentary stopping ~ so given normal Walmart operations, everything that's been said makes sense, but it's not yet determined that the car was actually parked ~ we do have the cop seeing the women get in a car ~ and it's easy to imagine the car on the apron or in the lot, but probably on the apron doing an ordinary pick up of passengers with packages.