The son of a senior Home Depot worker, who died after a serial shoplifter shoved him to the concrete floor, said his elderly dad was simply “going to ask for a receipt” when he was savagely attacked — as he calls for an urgent crackdown on rampant theft.
In the disturbing caught-on-camera assault, Gary Rasor, 83, was forcefully shoved to the ground after he approached a man wheeling out three pressure washers worth over $800 from the Hillsborough, North Carolina store on Oct. 18.
He died due to complications from his injuries on Dec. 1.
Rasor’s eldest child, Jeff Rasor, said his father was just doing his job and asking for proof of purchase when he was remorselessly attacked.
He is now calling for authorities to crack down on growing thievery across the nation.
“There has to be consequences in my mind, and the consequences have to fit the crime,” Rasor told Nightline on Thursday. “I can’t imagine that any piece of equipment in Home Depot is worth a life — and so when you find out it’s $837, it’s just pretty bad.”
Rasor is imploring law enforcement to enact harsher punishments to discourage shoplifters and end organized retail crimes that have plagued stores across America.
“He loved working at Home Depot,” Rasor said about his father and is pleading that “appropriate measures” be implemented to discourage retail theft.
Home Depot’s vice president of asset protection, Scott Glenn, has said that theft at the big box retailer has been “growing double-digit year over year.”
“More and more we’re seeing the risk being brought into the stores, and people being hurt or people even being killed in many cases because these folks, they just don’t care about the consequence,” Glenn told ABC News.
The home improvement chain has since beefed up security measures across its stores, which includes the installation of more cameras and hiring additional security guards.
New merchandise tracking technology has also been added to help track down shoplifters who escape with the store’s goods.
“We want them to feel safe when they come to work,” Glenn said of the chain’s 500,000 employees.
Former Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli has previously said the increase in retail store thefts is “an epidemic” that has frightened employees and shoppers in the wake of Rasor’s death.
“Our associates are afraid. The retail salespeople are afraid. Consumers are afraid. We’ve got to get control of this. And if the administration doesn’t get control of this, they’re abdicating it to the businesses, both public and private,” Nardelli told Fox News in December.
Following Gary Rasor’s death, a Home Depot employee was killed in a separate incident after confronting a shoplifter at a California store.
In April, a loss prevention employee, Blake Mohs, 26, was shot in the chest while trying to stop the theft.
Benicia Knapps, 32, and her boyfriend, David Guillory, 31, were charged with murder, robbery, child endangerment, and conspiracy after being pulled over by officers 15 minutes after the shooting.
Rasor said his father wouldn’t want “this guy to be in jail the rest of his life,” about Terry McAnthony McMillian, 26, who was charged with his dad’s murder in January, as well as robbery charges.
“He would rather that guy be graduating from law school and be on an internship right now somewhere,” Rasor said. “That’s what he’d want. But he’s not, he’s sitting in jail.”
