A hardware store employee who is four months pregnant saw a man heading for the door with a boxed air conditioner and went after him.
Surveillance video from an Ace Hardware in Palmdale, California, shows the employee following the man outside as he carries the bulky box toward a waiting vehicle. The air conditioner weighed 46 pounds, according to ABC7 Los Angeles.
What followed was considerably more physical than a request to bring the merchandise back. The employee caught up with the man and grabbed the box, struggling with him over it beside the vehicle before ultimately recovering it.
Store manager Carlos Morales later asked her why she had chased him. Her answer was simple: she acted on instinct.
Not Letting Go
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The video begins inside the store, where a man in a blue shirt can be seen taking the air conditioner from a shelf and moving toward the exit. An employee watching from near the registers quickly follows him outside.
Morales told ABC7 that two people had entered the store and described a pattern in which one person distracts employees while another takes merchandise.
Outside, the man reaches a van with the air conditioner. The employee catches him and pulls at the box as he tries to get it into the vehicle. She eventually comes away with it.
Morales was not at the store when the confrontation happened. He later told Storyful that the store does not encourage employees to chase suspected thieves or put themselves in danger.
He nevertheless praised the employee’s courage after speaking with her about what happened.
A Familiar Problem
Morales said the Ace Hardware location had been dealing with increasing theft since opening about six months ago. Some merchandise is now kept locked up in response.
The employee has worked there since the store opened.
The confrontation also drew exactly the concern Morales raised. Viewers reacting to the footage praised the employee for getting the air conditioner back, while others argued that neither her safety nor her pregnancy was worth risking over store merchandise.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was still looking for the two people connected to the attempted theft when ABC7 reported on the case. The van seen in the video did not have license plates, according to the station.