Quote:
Originally Posted by morantis
They are store employees and not law enforcement in any way, so therefore they can't even touch a person even if they watch them pick something up and walk out the door. They can't bar the exit, that's illegal, so the best they could do is get the tag number.
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If they believe a crime has been committed--which it probably hasn't until the person has left the building--they can commit a citizen's arrest, and detain the person.
The difference between citizen's rights and police officers' is that, if the citizen is *wrong,* the person can sue them. If the cop is wrong, there's no recourse unless the cop can be proven to be acting from incompetence or malice. Just thinking someone was guilty when they were not is acceptable for cops to act on.
Details of citizen's arrests vary by state; you'd have to check those laws for details. But there is no state in the US that requires people to stand around and watch crimes being committed because the police are too far away or too busy to deal with them right now.