The uncomfortable situation of witnessing a robbery

Moral dilemma

Many years ago when I was a teenager I studied in a militarised school, it was the most expensive school in my city where children from the middle and upper classes studied, as far as I knew I was the only one who lived in a poor community, but that did not make me feel bad, on the contrary, I never hid my origin or the place where I lived, I said it with pride, since my parents made a great sacrifice to keep me studying in that school.

I remember that the girls in my class at the age of 12 or 13 already had motorbikes and most of them were learning to drive their parents' vans. They had the habit of going to lunch on the weekends to the best restaurants in the city, and they would rotate the cost of the group lunch every week, many times I was invited and I attended very few precisely because I would never be able to pay for lunch for all of them.

I imagine that these girls integrated me into their group because they had good grades just like me and they benefited from my participation in the group work, one day they invited me to a supermarket and told me that we were going shopping and without thinking I went with them, a few minutes after being in the supermarket I observed how they put packets of sweets, crisps, sweets and sweets in their bags without going to the checkout to pay for them.

I immediately refused to participate and told them to leave everything in its place, as they ignored my demands I simply decided to leave the supermarket to wait for them outside because I still could not believe that they were able to steal that merchandise having money in their wallets and indeed that is what they did, They went to the checkout to pay for the smallest thing and came out all smug in their fancy clothes and good shoes and with their bags full of stolen goods laughing their heads off at their great deed.

When they left I was very angry and told them that it was not good that they should not do it again, that they should never invite me to do this kind of thing again, then we went to the house of one of them and all the anger that I had contained vanished when I saw her family relationship, she arrived at her house and was ignored by her whole family, her expression when she arrived made me sad and I understood that she felt lonely, of course that does not justify her actions.

This fact made me distance myself from the whole group and I never shared with them again. There are people who steal and it is not because of economic need, it is because of an inner emptiness that they don't know how to fill. This was the only time I have seen someone steal without being discovered and without reporting it and although I left the place I recognise that my silence made me an accomplice, but I was a girl against a whole group and the surprise and uncertainty did not allow me to act in any other way.

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