Officers Catch Teen Shoplifting For Sister's Christmas Gifts, Buy Items For Him

In a holiday season with multiple instances of Christmas shoplifting, two West Virginia police officers chose to look past the crime because of what they felt was good intent. Charleston, West Virginia officers Brandon Rinehart and James Smith apprehended a 15-year-old shoplifter Saturday night, but instead of arresting him for his actions, they bought the items he attempted to steal for him, WCHS-8 reported.

Rinehart and Smith showed up to a K-Mart store in Charleston to deal with a reported shoplifting incident Saturday night. According to a post on the Charleston Police Department’s Facebook page, the officers caught up with the unidentified teen after he stole a hat and a stocking. When he explained to the officers that he shoplifted those items to give them to his sister for Christmas, they took him back to the store and had him apologize to management. At that point, the officers decided to buy the items for him to take to his sister.

Most other stories about holiday thievery ended with someone being arrested and charged, but due to the shoplifter’s age and intentions, Rinehart and Smith decided to go in another direction, according to WCHS-8.

"We deal with so many people, we could tell genuineness and where it came from, from him. We could tell he was just a kid, lost, he didn't have anyone to support him, so we figured we'd do it,” Smith told WCHS-8.

As the police department’s Facebook post noted, the only punishment the shoplifter received was having to apologize to K-Mart’s loss prevention department and being lectured about right and wrong.