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Dollar General

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Former Dollar General cashier Jessie Sotto was terminated from her job in late May after she took down an alleged shoplifter with her car in Fresno, California.

Doorbell footage of the incident showed when the criminal justice major hit the alleged suspect with her white SUV during his bike ride getaway. Sotto bumped the man off his bike and caused all the allegedly stolen goods to fly across someone’s driveway in a residential neighborhood.

The man and Sotto threw harsh expletives at each other almost immediately after the collision. Then, as the cashier stepped out of the car, she yelled, “Who the fuck you think you are?! Stealing shit from my store, bitch! That’s the second time!”

The alleged thief responded and said, “You don’t live the life I fucking live bitch.”

“It ain’t that fucking serious, hoe,” he added, seemingly about the employee’s car chase on him. As the two cussed each other out, both parties tried to retrieve what they could of the stolen items.

After Sotto flung the man’s bike off the driveway, he seemingly hurled a can at her car door.

“You going to jail for that bitch, [I’ll] make sure of that. And I’m pressing charges,” he yelled as the college student pulled away with as much of the merchandise she could recover.

Sotto was fired from her cashier position at Dollar General after being put on a one-week suspension.

She gave context for the now-viral footage while she spoke with TMZ in late May.

The former cashier, now employed by DoorDash, said her managers were on rotation at the Dollar General location she previously worked at. Sotto was reportedly instructed to “go for it” and pursue the alleged shoplifter if he returned to the store after a May 11 incident when he allegedly stole from the business.

She stated that the man ignored the warnings he’d supposedly received before their dramatic incident happened — just a week after his initial alleged theft.

Sotto said the man walked out of the store with chips, bread, bologna, donuts, cheese, flowers and other goods before her pursuit of him ensued.

“I feel like a had the right to go after him… Like to go retrieve it. I asked him prior, to stop — to not come back,” Sotto explained. “My thought process was go after him, tell him to stop [and] gimme the stuff back.”

The college student said the man repeatedly said, “You don’t know my life,” and “Fuck you bitch” as she chased him down the street before they collided.

The former retail store employee said she was “sick and tired of people getting away with crime.” She emotionally added that there are hardworking and “honest” people like her who don’t manipulate the system.

“I loved my job at Dollar General, I did. I took it seriously like everyone said. I didn’t have go after him, but he was gonna keep doing it.”

The college student said she was “absolutely” sorry for hitting and hurting the alleged thief.

Authorities said the man wasn’t at the scene of the hit-and-run when they arrived to collect a report.

In the retailer’s written shoplifting policy, Dollar General allegedly states that “no employee should ever touch a shoplifter or leave the store to go after a shoplifter,” according to Query Sprout.

 

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