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SOMERSET, Mass. A call to police about a shoplifting incident has turned into something much bigger for a Massachusetts police officer who felt the punishment didn’t necessarily fit the crime.
A few days before Christmas, Matt Lima of the Somerset Police Department was dispatched to the local Stop and Shop for a reported theft.
“The allegation was the two females were scanning some items at self-checkout but bypassing other items and bagging those items,” explained Lima. “Dispatch indicated it was two females and two young small children and they were detained by Loss and Prevention over there.”
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Officer Matt Lima of the Somerset Police Department said he responded to a call at the local Stop & Shop and was told the women had been caught skipping the scanner at the self-checkout line, putting several items straight into their bags. The suspected shoplifters were with two young children. I have two girls myself, similar in age to the two girls that were there, so it kind of struck me a little bit, Lima told local NBC affiliate WJAR.
He was further moved when he learned that the mother of the kids had no job, and the food they were stealing was for their holiday dinner.
A Somerset, Massachusetts, police officer purchased groceries for two women suspected of shoplifting five days before Christmas.
Officer Matt Lima responded to a call at a local Stop & Shop store where two women with two small children were suspected of not scanning all their groceries in the self-checkout area, according to a press release from the Somerset Police Department.
Once Lima arrived at the grocery store, he talked to one of the women accused of shoplifting and learned that the women did not have the money to buy Christmas dinner because they fell on hard times.
“The woman I talked to, she explained she was working, but the mother of the children was not working and had some other family issues going on and that what she had taken was Christmas dinner for the kids,” Lima told WJAR.
A Somerset, Mass., police officer bought groceries for two women accused of shoplifting five days before Christmas.
Officer Matt Lima was dispatched to a local Stop & Shop grocery store, where two women with two small children were accused of not scanning all of their groceries in the self-checkout lane, according to the Somerset Police Department. The two children with the women reminded me of my kids, so I had to help them out, Lima said in a Tuesday statement.
When the officer arrived at the grocery store, he spoke with one of the women accused of shoplifting and learned that they had fallen on hard times and did not have enough money to purchase an entire Christmas dinner.