In June of this year, I entered the Joondalup Shopping Centre in Perth, Western Australia to grab a couple of groceries on my way to work. I entered from the south entrance. I walked down the southern corridor toward one of the food courts at the centre of the mall. The food court serves as a sort of four-way intersection for mall traffic. As I approached the intersection, I could see a man walking through the food court from the western corridor to my right. The man was thin, White, tall, and his 30s or 40s. He was walking erratically and not wearing a shirt.
In Perth, seeing a thin man with shirt off in a public is not necessarily unusual given that the city has a surf and beach lifestyle. However, we were several miles away from the nearest beach, and June is winter in Perth.
As the man passed through the mall intersection, he pulled on his pants to keep them from falling. I then turned left at the intersection, meaning that he and I were both now walking down the eastern corridor. The man was approximately 20 yards in front of me, with a woman halfway between us.
As I continued to down the eastern corridor, I kept my eyes on the man. He was still moving erratically and catching glances from many people. Part of me wanted to approach the man and reprimand him for not having a shirt on in the middle of a mall. But I said nothing. I did not think it was my responsibility.
A few steps later, I saw the man dart to the left into a store. Within a matter of seconds, the man re-appeared. But now he was wearing a sweatshirt. He had stolen it from the store. The tag was dangling off the back.
My pulse accelerated, and I began to walk faster. As often happens in such scenarios, I was shocked at what I had just seen. It certainly is not every day that you see someone steal so blatantly from a store. I thought that a worker might soon appear from the store and go after the man. At minimum, I thought that a worker might at least yell at him. But none of that happened.
Many thoughts raced through my mind. “What should I do? Should I grab the man from behind to stop him? Should I tackle him to the ground? What if he has a knife? Is it worth risking damage to myself over all this? Where is mall security? Isn’t this their job?”
The man then entered the next food court intersection. He steered off toward one of the café stands; he appeared to be looking to steal some food from their countertop. However, all of their food was under cover and so he kept walking in the direction where I was also heading. Meanwhile, the woman who was in front of me approached the café attendant and warned of the man and his intentions.
I saw the man turn the corner toward the grocery store, but by the time I turned the corner, he was gone. Near the grocery store was a narrow hallway that led to facility maintenance rooms. That’s where I thought the man went. I thought he might be trying to hide in one of the rooms.
However, to my surprise, as I approached the entrance of the grocery store, the man was walking out of the store directly at me. He was holding a plastic container of strawberries. The container was open and he was eating the strawberries.
Over the man’s shoulder, I could see packages of strawberries positioned in an open refrigerator at the front of the store. The man had stolen the strawberries.
As the man approached me, I tossed my laptop bag behind my waist and pointed my finger at him, “Hey,” I yelled, “what are you doing with those? I just saw you steal them. I saw you steal that sweatshirt too.”
The man’s response was not what I was expecting. He did not pull knife; he did not try push or punch me; and he did not try to run. He did not even try to argue with me. He submitted – immediately and completely, he submitted.
The man quickly extended his hands so that I could take the strawberries from him. He then put his hands behind his back. He thought I was there to arrest him.
Near the entrance to the grocery store, there was a bench against a wall. I told the man to sit there and then ordered one of the female staff in the grocery store to call security. I quickly informed her of what I had seen – from the stolen sweatshirt to the stolen strawberries. As I handed the strawberries to the woman, she tried to ask me more questions, which, under the circumstances, were unnecessary. I told her bluntly, “I don’t know. Just call security. Get them here now.” The woman listened.
I went back to the bench where the man was still sitting, submissive. I then noticed a large scab on his bald head – who knows how it go there.
It did not take long for me to realise that the man was mentally unwell. I could not tell whether the man was high on drugs or whether he had a longstanding mental health issue or both. Regardless, the man was fidgety and rubbed his head and grabbed various parts of his body as scattered comments came from his mouth. At times he came across as potentially dangerous, at other times, he came across as entirely feeble. He apologized to me on multiple occasions. And to his credit, the man remained seated on the bench. I told him that help was coming, though I knew it was security, not a mental health professional, who was on his way.
Eventually, the security attendant arrived. The attendant was probably in his 20s, around 5’5’’ and 130 pounds. He appeared timid, as if it were his first day on the job. I quickly debriefed him on the situation and said, “Call your friends. Call your backup. This guy is unwell.”
The attendant demonstrated a level of hesitation and incompetence, which seems all to prevalent in such positions these days. The attendant barely asked me any questions. And although he was, in theory, the one with the greatest power in the scenario, he came across as weakest and most lax and naïve. Rather than make the man continue to sit there and wait for a police officer to arrive, the attendant decided he would walk casually with the unwell and potentially dangerous man back to the store to return the sweatshirt. As the two of them headed off, I realised that my job was done, although I did not necessarily want it to be. “What was going to happen to the man? Would he be held accountable for his actions? What will be done about his mental health? What about the security attendant? Is he really going to be able to keep mall shoppers safe from a guy like this?”
Nevertheless, I quickly accepted the circumstances, and that I had done all that one might be expected to do. It was now someone else’s responsibility. I went into the grocery store and bought the food I had intended to buy. After a couple of minutes in the store, I then followed the path back to where I had entered the shopping centre. As I approached the store where the man had stolen the sweatshirt, I could see the man was sitting on a customer couch in front of the store and the middle of the corridor. The security attendant was there and so was a uniformed police officer.
To end, I want to tell you about a part of the story that I skipped over. It has to do with what the man and I were talking about as we waited for the security attendant to arrive. During that period, my goal was to keep the man distracted; to talk to him about anything, just so that he would stay seated and subdued, buying more time for security to arrive. At certain points in our chat, bits of conscientiousness and thoughtfulness seeped out from the man’s otherwise irrational thoughts. At one point, he said something about the importance of family, and he also briefly mentioned something about kids, perhaps his own. Then, as the man found himself wandering back into another state of confusion, he screamed out, “What is going on right now? Where am I? What is happening?”
The grown man then crawled into a figurative fetal position and yelled aloud, “Mommy, mommy! Where is my mommy?”
As I watched the police officer place cuffs around the man’s wrist as I walked by the couch, I remembered the man’s call for his mother and thought to myself, “Why didn’t he call out for his father?”
If you appreciated this story, please consider supporting The Nuzzo Letter with a one-time or recurring donation. Your support is greatly appreciated. It helps me to work on independent research projects and fight for more evidence-based discourse. To donate to The Nuzzo Letter, click the DonorBox log below. In two simple steps, you can donate using ApplePay, PayPal, or another service. Thank you.
Share this post