The Allergy Medicine at the South Doors
At 21:40 on a Friday you are the only guard on duty at a 24-hour drugstore with two entrances and 11 staff working the floor. Your post orders allow detention of a suspected shoplifter only when you personally observed the whole sequence - selection, concealment, and passing the last point of sale - and only when a second employee is free to act as a witness. You are at the front register camera bank when the assistant manager calls: a man in a gray hoodie has three boxes of allergy medicine in his backpack and is walking toward the south exit. You did not see him take anything. Two of the three floor employees are on break; the third is with a customer. The man is now six feet from the automatic south doors. Your radio channel is shared with the store manager, who is at home and can hear everything you say.
1. You are near the south doors as the man approaches. State what you do in the next 30 seconds and why.
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You do not detain. Both conditions in your post orders are unmet: you did not observe the concealment, and no second employee is free to witness. That matters legally as well as procedurally - a guard holds no arrest power beyond that of a private citizen, and restraining someone on hearsay alone exposes you and the employer to false imprisonment and battery claims. Instead: note the time, the clothing, height, build, and direction of travel; hold position at a distance without touching or blocking the doorway; radio that you are doing a non-contact customer approach and ask the third employee to respond if they can; if the employee arrives before he exits, a lawful, non-forceful contact is possible. Otherwise let him leave, get a plate number if there is a vehicle, and call police non-emergency with the description. Immediately write down the camera and DVR time offset so the footage can be pulled before it is overwritten.
2. The assistant manager says, 'We have had this guy three times - just grab his bag.' How do you respond, and what are you actually protecting against?
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Refuse, briefly, then offer alternatives. 'Three times before' is the manager's belief, not your observation, and it is not something a court or a loss-prevention file will treat as grounds. Grabbing the bag converts an uncertain identification into a physical act you must justify as reasonable force, near an automatic door, with no witness and no backup. The exposures are false imprisonment, battery, and an escalation injury to a subject whose medical status you do not know. Workable options: let him exit, write a factual report, and ask store leadership to file a police report and pursue a documented trespass notice so the next visit is on record; raise the earlier incidents as a staffing problem and request a second guard at peak hours. If the manager insists, ask for the instruction in writing and notify your account supervisor rather than simply complying.
3. What belongs in the incident report, and what must stay out of it?
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Include: date, time, and your post; the assistant manager's exact words, labelled as reported to you rather than observed; your own observations only - time, distance, clothing, hands, direction, whether anyone was touched; the names and roles of staff present and their availability; the notification sequence, including that you called police and the time; and the camera number and time offset with who exported it and when. Keep out conclusions you cannot support: 'known shoplifter,' 'stole,' 'repeat offender.' Those are inferences, and a report that states them as fact will undermine the store if the matter is charged or litigated.