Safeway Drops Shoplifting Charges Against Young Mom-to-be
Just when you think you've heard everything, there comes this story of a young pregnant woman who was arrested for munching on a sandwich she picked up in a Safeway store in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Her problem was that she ate the sandwich before she paid for it, and she was arrested. To make things worse, her little girl was taken away by CPS.
The story went viral, and after a firestorm of criticism, Safeway has backed down and apologized for the way the incident was handled.
The Safeway supermarket chain told Honolulu police Tuesday it won't press charges against Marcin and Nicole Leszczynski. The couple were arrested last week when Nicole, who is 30 weeks pregnant, ate a sandwich while shopping and walked out without paying for it.
Their 2 year old daughter was taken away by state Child Welfare Services officials, but she was returned to her parents 18 hours later.
Karl Schroeder, a Safeway division president, called Nicole Leszczynski on Tuesday, and, "He apologized for what she's been through," Houghton said.
Houghton said management followed the company's established shoplifting procedure by contacting police, but Safeway regrets not foreseeing that doing so would cause a child to be separated from her parents.
The incident is prompting Safeway to examine how its managers and employees are trained. Houghton said "In this case, it was not handled in the appropriate manner and we wanted to correct that."
All this over a five dollar sandwich. It just goes to show you should never EVER munch on something at the supermarket before you've paid for it.
A few years ago, a lady in a supermarket picked a couple of grapes off a bunch of grapes in the produce department. A manager saw her and had her arrested for shoplifting. The lesson? Don't sample the grapes.
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