@oldbadger I also think there's no evidence of bigotry being involved as a possible motive for her being accused of stealing or "locked in," since the only other person we see is in the store appears to me to be of the same race as the woman. Does anyone think that man looks white? I don't. He appears to be walking from behind the counter, and is wearing a uniform shirt that looks like a Shell station uniform. If you stop the frame at approx. 1:16 you can see what appears to be the Shell logo on the back.
The retail trade suffers from levels of prejudice which, when recognised, are truly beyond belief. Staff nationality, race, colour etc have little to do with these disgraceful levels.
Please let me explain, best as I can..... Please forgive the intensity .....
1. Many Senior Police Officers around the World think that Retailers who stuff their displays full of exotic and often unaffordable goods are most irresponsible, because they almost provoke thefts in their attempts to sell produce, and then scream for expensive Police response and care when it all goes wrong.
2. Because of this, sensible retailers who want to enjoy good profits spend time/ money on thinking up ways to sell their produce while minimising on the COSTS of CRIME. These retailers discovered that when they hire staff who are heatedly self-righteous about theft that such staff raise the costs of crime because where they could easily deter thefts they seem to prefer to contentiously confront thefts in a conflict-high manner, which increases the risks to life, injuries, criminal damage, police-time, court time and more. All of these costs automatically reduce profits, as well as increasing dangers to staff and customers.
3. So these retailers think up sensible ways of detering thefts in their shops. There are hundreds of deterrents, some hugely effective (10%) some tiny (0.25%) but if a retailer is turning over 1 billion dollars per annum and a cheap deterrrent of 0.25% works the saving is massive if the cost of the deterrent is small.
4. The single most safe and effective deterrent where a person or group is believed to be preparing to steal is by offering Customer-Care. This can be a polite approach to ask if a person needs help, or in the case of a gang concealing $1000s of dollars of property some staff could actually attend with trolleys, offering to help take the stock to the tills (with straight faces!). A simple tannoy announcement asking for all managers to attend their departments, store-detectives to the shop-floor and all guards to the store entrances can deter a massive crime whilst not actually risking anybody's safety.
5. But there is a problem. Retail Staff Prejudices! We know that every level of society has its % of thieves, and this includes Army Officers, Police Inspectors, MP's wives, Airline Directors, Accountants, Bus Drivers, Welders, Nurses, Benefits claimants etc. We know this! Their drives to steal vary, from Need, Greed, Speed (excitement) to Peer-pressure, Hate, Anger, Intellectual-arrogance and more. We can train retail staff to react to safely and inexpensively deter many crimes....... But some retail staff are very prejudiced about some types of people.
6. Over here (UK) if a survey was carried out amongst retail staff, asking their opinions about various types of people, their nationalities, classes, colours, races, ages, gender, religions etc we would almost definitely find a MASSIVE short circuit as soon as 'Travellers' or 'Gypsies' were mentioned.
7. Over here, well trained retail staff can offer CUSTOMER CARE to deter many potential thefts and losses, but as soon as a call goes out on staff-radio that 'Travellers' are instore the whole training program can fail through PREJUDICE. Staff deliberately stand-stare in attitude, no customer-care is offered, no smiles, guards are sent running this way and that (I've seen this rubbish) and your average Gypsy, treated thus, can feel extremely angry....... I would.
8. Gypsies can react differently...... and I have seen CCTV footage of a group of gypsies who stopped shopping, and started trashing displays. Obviously, when a group of folks trashes a store, then that is a crime. It is costly, in frightened staff, damaged stock, masses of staff hours, giving statements to police, travel to Court etc etc. All these costs come straight off the top of retail profits. All of these costs, and the whole incident, could be avoided if staff were not prejudiced about certain types of people.
9. Reinforced prejudice is even worse. That is a condition when staff might tell you that all (whichever type of people) are bad, and steal. So these staff, and guards and store-detectives ALWAYS watch these people whenever they can, and maths predicts that the more you watch a 'type' then the more that you will catch that type, and then the prejudiced person can hold that incident high and shout to all, 'See? These people are bad! I always knew it!' and the prejudice has been butressed, or reinforced.
10. And (for instance) Black retail staff can be prejudiced about (say) black women of a certain age, or size, with certain clothing, or already known, etc. And in the OP the woman was not offered customer-care, she was confronted, conflict-high, accused, etc......... and then locked in. And then, after her anger had caused her actions, they let her out and away.............. Staff training? Staff Prejudice? Staff stupidity? That cost a massive amount from Shell Profits, and it didn't need to. And that Lady was mistreated. imo...... very bad.
