So we could see legal precedent that shoplifters won’t fear being physically stopped.
If that happens, it will give a giant green light to shoplifters and flash mob types. If they learn that nothing will happen to them, we will see much more of this behavior.
...and Walmart can open a “Shoplifter’s Express Line” to allow them a safer and more orderly egress from their stores.
“So we could see legal precedent that shoplifters won’t fear being physically stopped.”
We don’t need the precident, but I believe most retail store policies already advise not trying to interfere with would-be robbers. I know this was the case for me when I tended register.
I was in the street level Bon Marche Food Court in Paris a few years ago when a Communist led protest group went by. A number of marchers came in and stuffed packaged food items under their coats and left. Store employees ignored what was going on. Obviously there would be retribution if they stopped anyone.
It’s amusing that Stalin exterminated people in the Ukraine for taking food when he demanded they send all the food produced there be shipped to other parts of Russia. He was bringing them into submission because Lenin had let them have more freedom than the rest of the Soviet state in exchange for the food they produced. The Ukraine openly greeted the Nazis when they invaded and Hitler made a big mistake in treating them like the rest of the Russians. He could have had a base of support to help him later when the Red Army was pushing him back.