A Missouri teacher has been praised for helping stop an attempted shoplifting over the weekend.
T.J. Barnet walked into the Price Chopper in Independence when he heard raised voices. He knew something was wrong.
He then came upon two store employees struggling to put a man in handcuffs.
As he approached, the teacher saw a female employee uncomfortably holding a gun that had been confiscated from the man, and the man’s accomplice was going for it.
That’s when Barnet knew he had to act.
“At that moment, I thought, ‘I don’t think I want him to have this gun,’” Barnet said.
“I just kind of grabbed him by the chest and I just drove him backwards. We hit one of those sliding glass doors and it fell off the hinges and then we just came down to the ground and I landed on top of him.”
Just minutes later, Independence police officers arrived and detained the suspect.
Barnet, a big superhero fan, was lauded by his students at Truman High School for what he did.
“I’ve told the story about 30 times,” Barnet said. “The students were trying to ask without saying it. ‘Did anything cool happen this weekend? Did you go grocery shopping?’”
Barnet said that while his wife couldn’t help but think of what might have happened, given that he has a second child on the way, he was compelled to act.
“She was happy but not happy,” he said, “but at the same time, what if I didn’t do something?”
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