I once bought a carton of milk from a 12-year-old that was shoplifting it

This was back in 2015 in Bloomington, IL. <br><br>I was with my friend at the Walmart. We were bored and waiting for our other friends to get back from Olive Garden. <br><br>I saw a kid, probably 12, running out of the store (past the registers) with a carton of cold milk. One of the employees yelled at him to stop. He replied “fuck off bitch! Mind your own business!” <br><br>The employee, as you could imagine, did not like that. <br><br>The kid ran across the parking lot, and as I watched, he was accosted by a man in his mid 40s, who proceeded to punch him in his stomach. <br><br>I was not happy with this, so I decided to intervene. I ran across the parking lot (past the speed bumps as well!). <br><br>The guy was yelling at the kid, saying he was going to call the cops. <br><br>The kid, with tears in his eyes (obviously, he had just been punched) asked the man to let him go. The man said he wouldn’t let him go unless he gave up the milk. <br><br>The kid proceeded to say “fine, you can have it!”<br><br>That was all she wrote. The man let the kid go, but I got there just as he was letting him go. The kid ran away crying. <br><br>The man came up to me, milk carton in hand, and asked me if I wanted to buy the milk from him. I thought, why not. So I gave him $3, and he handed me the carton of milk. <br><br>I walked back across the parking lot, carton of milk in hand. <br><br>The employee that had yelled at the kid was standing outside the door, smoking a cigarette. He looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. <br><br>“Where did you get that milk?”, he asked. <br><br>I replied “some guy I met outside sold it to me.”<br><br>“Oh, that makes sense. He was shoplifting it from us.”<br><br>I nodded, and walked inside to rejoin my friend.