Good Guy with a Gun #256: Sweden, NY
Would you intervene in a Walmart meat theft? Maybe, maybe not, but if you do, bring a gun. | Original incident: July 14, 2024
These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. Today’s post is significantly updated from as the calendar version.
Petit larceny is a misdemeanor. Robbery in the first degree is a Class B felony. The distance between the two turned out to be one sharp object.
Just after noon on a Sunday afternoon, a man walked out of the Brockport Walmart with a large amount of meat he hadn’t paid for. A customer in the lot saw it and walked over to intervene. Smart? Maybe, maybe not. Comments welcome.
Anyway, the thief pulled a sharp object, possibly a knife, which turned petit larceny into robbery and made the customer draw his own legally owned handgun. (New York hasn’t quite succeeded in getting rid of those yet, though darned if they’re not trying.)
Nobody fired. The man with the meat bolted. Someone caught the tense few seconds on a phone and sent the video to WHEC 10; the sheriff’s office spent the next ten days working leads on a suspect who’d vanished over an armful of groceries.
He turned out to be Ethan White, 23, of Rochester. On July 24, deputies learned he was at a business in Seneca County, and the MCSO Tactical Unit — with the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force riding along — took him in just after 8 that evening.
White was booked on robbery in the first degree, menacing, petit larceny, reckless driving, and unlawful fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle — though I don’t see anything in the news about what he did to deserve that last charge.
“These are not just petty thefts,” Sheriff Todd Baxter said. “We are all paying the price for this lawlessness. The actions of this criminal and the chaos he created will not be tolerated.”
So, a great outcome: The customer never had to fire, and the police caught the criminal. For a good guy with a gun in a parking lot, that’s about as clean as it comes.
Sources
Primary
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office posted their report online. It’s only available through the Wayback Machine now.
Local news
WHAM ran it twice: the initial search and the arrest follow-up.
WHEC 10 did aired the witness’s cell-phone video — though there’s not much to see — and gave the initial story 30 seconds of airtime; then they followed up at the arrest.
WROC/Rochester First covered the incident and gave it 45 seconds of airtime.
Fingerlakes1 also covered this incident.
2A / specialist media
John Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) picked up this story in a monthly roundup of defensive gun uses.
Hmm. I'm not sure it would be my business to stop a shoplifter if the store security didn't see it or try to stop it. It certainly doesn't seem like something to risk one's life over. I don't think we'd do it -- but maybe that makes us cowards. However, I'm glad it turned out okay on all counts.