Crime doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
What I mean by that is unless the person is a legitimate sociopath, there are a lot of societal factors that drive someone to break laws both big and small.
Theft in particular is often done out of desperation rather than greed. It is unlikely that someone who already has everything they need is going to rob a store to get more comfortable.
Police are still searching for one Philadelphia man who almost robbed a smoke shop in Somerton.
Security footage shows the well-disguised man entering the store, pointing a gun at the woman behind the counter, and asking for all of the cash in the cash register.
The store owner confirms that the man was handed roughly two hundred dollars in cash.
And then, the man did something that no one expected:
He lowered his gun and gave the women back all of the cash. At that point, the owner stated, he became friendly.
He told them that there was no point taking the cash because it wasn’t enough to pay for his daughter’s kidney transplant.
“That was unbelievable, what happened, because he actually had the money in his hand and refused to take it,” the store owner stated, “He said it was not enough to pay for his daughter’s kidney transplant.”
“I think for willing to use the gun or taking it out of his pocket, he should be punished for that.”
“But in the same time,” the owner continued, “As a society, we should do something to help people like that and not push him to the edge where they have to use a gun.”
Local police say that he is still in violation of the law for committing armed robbery, even if he didn’t take anything.
h/t: Toronto Sun
