Woman Caught Shoplifting in a Mall Tries to Run Away From Police — Twice

While many shoppers go to big, public spaces like their local mall, most buy items from multiple stores at once. However, many mall frequenters know that other shoppers have ulterior motives, such as window shopping for their dream items or even going as far as to shoplift — or steal — the desired things.

In August 2023, shoppers at the Twelve Oaks Mall, a mall in Metro Detroit, Mich., recorded a woman who was, unfortunately, attempting to do the latter. However, once the police caught her trying to shoplift, their actions became so shocking that one shopper, who goes by @paxton_wallrunning on TikTok, documented the entire ordeal on their platform.

Keep scrolling to find out what happened.

During a routine shopping trip, Paxton and his friends walked through the first floor of Twelve Oaks. While shopping, they noticed a woman running into a JCPenney to avoid being caught by the mall’s police officers.

In the TikToker’s caption, they explained that the woman stole from a nearby Bath and Body Works and ran through JCPenney once the salesperson alerted the police. Once they saw the woman enter JCPenney, they and several other people from the first floor rushed upstairs to get a better view of what was happening.

When the TikToker and their friends made it upstairs, they zoomed in on the woman, eventually being caught by the police officers. As the user kept recording, they recalled that the same cop had “yelled” at them before they found the shoplifter.

The woman, now handcuffed, sat on the JCPenney sales floor as the police monitored her. While still in handcuffs, she tried to escape the police, but they stopped her by pushing her down on the floor and yelled at her to “sit down!”

Seeing the woman, who appeared to be Black, being slammed to the ground by two white police officers activated a white female onlooker’s rage.

The white woman, who wasn’t quite a Karen, in my opinion, but more like a Kelsey, proceeded to yell at the cops and said they didn’t have to be so “aggressive” with the shoplifter, to which they replied, “thank you for your service!” in the most shady way ever.

Kelsey, Paxton, and other shoppers followed the woman as the two officers held onto her arms and walked her out of JCPenney.

After Paxton convinced his “gang” (not a real gang, think ‘gang gang’ or a ‘squad’) to follow the woman who shoplifted as she made her way out of the mall, he re-recorded her. Only this time, the woman tried to run away from the officers again to no avail.

Since the police weren’t far away from her, they continued escorting her out of the mall as the Paxton asked, “Why did she try to run again?”

Following Paxton’s TikTok of the woman getting arrested for shoplifting, the video went viral, garnering over 1 million views on the user’s channel. The user also received several comments on their take on the situation.

In the comments, many disagreed with Kelsey’s previous claims that the officers were too aggressive with the woman.

While the officers should’ve handled the situation differently, several users pointed out that the shoplifter explicitly yelled profanities at the officers and tried to escape them multiple times.

“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” one user said.

“They keep telling her to sit down, and she keeps getting back up, and y'all upset,” another wrote. “So what? They’re grown men; they’re also doing their jobs.”