The lack of a person watching you check out does not mean no one is watching. They absolutely are and you are being recorded the entire time you are in the store.
Also, these stores have tools that can tally up losses associated to you, and they’ll pull in the cops when the evidence is enough to warrant serious penalty.
Target is notorious for this. Loss Prevention has literal evidence binders for repeat offenders. They’ll tally up everything you’ve stolen, and then sit on it and continue tallying until you have stolen enough to be charged with a felony. Once they have a dollar over their local felony amount, they’ll send their LP team in to pull you aside and you get arrested for felony grand theft.
Imo I think observing a crime like that but not reporting it (so more crimes can be amassed by that person) should be considered legal endorsement of the activity. You were aware of the infraction and chose not to report it or otherwise act on. That you were hoping to “bank” more crime from the criminal seems irrelevant to me - you chose not to pursue legal action even after clearly being aware of the infraction, which tells me you chose inaction.
But of course bringing our laws in line with morality and reason would require an enormous overhaul of the system, so instead we have this bullshit.
Remember that even if you cover your face, they’re probably monitoring for your gait. Put a small rock in your shoe to change that…
