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Two 7-Eleven workers in California took matters into their own hands and used a stick to wallop a man who tried to steal a trash can full of cigarettes.
Shocking video of the attempted robbery shows one employee holding the thief down while his colleague relentlessly whacks him roughly 25 times.
“Okay, okay!” the thief screams at his attacker while pleading for mercy.
Before he was taken down by the retail workers, the robber had casually sauntered behind the California convenience store’s register with a 20-gallon trash can in tow.
He nonchalantly grabs fistfuls of tobacco products — including cigarettes, cigars and vapes — and tosses them into the bin as the off-camera workers plead for him to stop.
“Just let him go. There ain’t nothing you can do. They’re not going to do nothing,” the bystander who took the video can be heard saying, seemingly referencing the national string of thefts in which shoplifters raid shelves of supplies before walking out with their loot.
The green-and-black-clad worker switches from a defensive role when the thief tries to push past him and orders him to move out of the way while he continues his heist.
The employee quickly grapples with the robber and tackles him to the floor, just in time for his co-worker to appear and deliver 23 brutal blows with what appears to be a broomstick.
The weapon-wielding employee takes a quick break from the whacking — while his co-worker squeezes in a punch of his own to the upper back of the robber — sending the thief writhing chaotically enough to knock over his trove of stolen goods at the feet of his attacker.
“That’s called whoopin’ your a–! Whoop his a–! Get him!” the bystander says, before asking the thief if he’s ready to give up the heist.
“Yeah, I’m done!” the robber pleads. “I’m going to go.”
In spite of the surrender, the stick-wielding employee delivers two final whacks while the bystander orders the workers to free the robber.
“No more! No more!” the cameraman says as the thief screams in pain.
In subsequent videos shared by the bystander, the employees contemplate calling the police on the thief, but opt to let him walk out empty-handed.
The bystander walks behind the counter and urges the workers to let the man free before berating the man himself, ordering him not to come back to the 7-Eleven or try stealing again.
The thief claims he was beaten so badly that he can’t stand up and walk out on his own, until the bystander calls his bluff.
“You better walk tonight,” he says while leading him out of the store.
Amid his agonized groans and pleas for his freedom, the thief asks whether he can get a soda for the road.
“What kind of s–t you telling me? You do this s–t and you want a soda? No, no, no. Get the f–k out, man,” the bystander says.
Though it is not entirely clear where the incident took place, lottery numbers visible at the beginning of the video indicate it happened in California.
The cameraman claims it occurred in Stockton, a city roughly 50 miles south of Sacramento, but the police department had not heard of the incident as of Wednesday night.
A representative from 7-Eleven did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The theft is just one of many in a growing epidemic of organized shoplifting that has affected cities across the country.
Last month, three women brazenly wheeled out three shopping carts worth of stolen merchandise that they jacked from a Burlington store.
A Bay Area family hardware store announced this week that it lost a jarring $700,000 in merchandise in 2022 thanks to rampant shoplifting.
Retail theft in America has skyrocketed to $94 billion — an alarming 90% increase since 2018, according to the National Retail Federation.
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