Chris Lowrey
Shawville Sept. 24, 2019
Social media was abuzz last week with news that a shoplifter had brazenly sauntered right out the front door of . . .
Joanne’s Valu-mart in Shawville with a grocery cart full of items.
But the store’s owner, Joanne Dumouchel, thinks this was more than a case of someone needing food to feed their family.
“I have heard from individuals in the last few months telling me that they were able to buy some of our meat items outside of our store,” said Dumouchel.
She said that while it may seem unthinkable for many people to simply walk out of a grocery store without paying for a cart full of items, it’s becoming more common.
“This shoplifting incident isn’t the only one we’ve had in the last couple of months,” Dumouchel said. “The general public just doesn’t realize that this could happen in our small town, but it does just like everywhere else.”
On Sept. 24, as the grocery thief exited the store through the entrance way, a paying customer noticed the act and notified a cashier who followed in pursuit.
“He did not go to a car so he just continued to the street with the cart full of groceries,” said Dumouchel. “The cashier continued following him and he just left the groceries on the street and ran from there.”
The cashier then grabbed the cart and brought it back into the store.
It was full of meat items, butter and expensive brands of cheese.”
“We calculated the amount in groceries because we knew from the past reports to police that we’d need that information,” Dumouchel said.
The goods in the brimming shopping cart added up to more than $450.
“They steal a lot of our higher-priced items and items they can re-sell,” Dumouchel said.
Dumouchel then took to social media to get some help from the community.
“Using the surveillance footage we have, we took some photos and posted it to Facebook asking our Facebook friends to identify them,” she said. “I had several people come forward and we did get an ID and reported it to police.”
