Supermarket Employee Fired For Recording Shoplifters

A supermarket employee in Colorado was fired from his position after he recorded three men stealing around $500 worth of laundry detergent from the store on Father's Day.

Santino Burrola, the King Soopers employee, was told about a theft in the store currently happening, and the first thing he did was pull out his phone to record his interaction with the thieves.

“When I looked there was already a guy halfway headed out with a food cart full of laundry detergents and scent boosters and what have you,” Burrola told CBS Colorado. “My first instinct, record.”

Burrola, a former military police officer, walked out of the store, and the three thieves hurried up and loaded the stolen products up in a Chevy Trax. One thief opened the doors, another threw the basket full of items in the backseat while the third tried to unload the shopping cart.

“Really, bro, you got to resort to this? The economy isn’t that bad,” Burrola could be heard in the now-viral video shared by the Arapahoe Sheriff’s Office.

“Better gettin’ while the gettin’s good,” Burrola joked to the men.

As the three men tried to flee the parking lot, the getaway driver was a little faster than the two still outside the car, who had trouble getting into the vehicle.

The issue of the thieves getting in the car gave Burrola was able to get the aluminum foil covering the vehicle's license plate off of the car.

“Investigators have already identified and arrested the driver, Jorge Pantoja, 32, the man in the green shirt,” the Arapahoe Sherriff’s Office said in a statement. “Pantoja is currently in custody at the Adams County Detention Facility on unrelated felony charges. He has also been charged with Theft/Shoplifting, a Class 2 Misdemeanor.”

When Burrola returned to the store for his shift the next day, he found out he was suspended. A week later, he was fired from the job.

“Did I feel that I overstepped boundaries? Not really because I didn’t physically touch them or alter their shoplifting in any way, I just revealed the license plate to help the community to be aware, the police be aware and to help better catch them,” Burrola told 9News.

Read more at NY Post