Okay I hate WalMart but I must be fair, most of the large retailers do not allow employees to stop shoplifters or involve themselves in situations like this. It is because in todays world the suspect is likely to pull a gun and start shooting. The companies policy is usually we have them on camera, we have there car on camera, we'll turn it over to the police, there is no sense anybody getting killed over it.

my friend had her purse stolen at wal-mart. when she asked to see the video tapes of the security cameras that had caught the incident, the manager had to admit that the camera were not actually taking any footage and that they were only used as deterrents;

[i dont expect so much from walmart anymore-]

Alyssa,

this is pretty common. Most of the cameras installed at Walmarts were put up to spy on employees who were trying to unionize their store. Once they were fired or shut up, the cameras stayed up, but no one monitors them, and with the real threat of unionization gone, they stop recording anything. After all, who cares if someone gets kidnapped and killed from their parking lot, it's the unions that are really scary.

We are going to have to wake up now to the fact that stores like Walmart are dinosaurs. Granted, they are dangerous dinosaurs, that haven't quite died off yet. I am trying to shop more locally in every way. I am seeing food coops popping up everywhere. I want to support products that do not involve huge transportation costs and that support good wages for the producers of the products.

Oh yeah, and walmart shit always breaks.

But if Ms. Smith had lost the receipt for her purchase, she'd have been manhandled by a security guard on the way out and the police would arrive to book her shortly.

The dystopian world of Wal-Mart: where the only crime that counts as crime is a mindless infraction of arbitrary rules, and interpersonal assaults are just part of the day.

Wal-Mart actions are exactly like the Bush administration -- ignore the well-being of the citizens/shoppers, but watch out for your own back through illegal means.  This is what I'd expect from a GOP-like, morally bankrupt corporation like Wal-Mart.