Beloved Grocery Store Clerk Dies After Stopping Shoplifter

Leobardo Hernandez, a 64-year-old stock clerk at the Morton Williams grocery store on Ninth Avenue at 58th Street died following an apparent heart attack incurred after he confronted a shoplifter trying to steal a six-pack of Heineken. At press time, the suspected beer bandit remains on the loose.

“My father was a kind and hardworking man who always put his family first, someone who touched the lives of everyone he met with his warmth and generosity,” his son Harold Hernandez wrote on a GoFundMe that has been established to return Hernandez to his native Guerrero, Mexico, where he wished to be buried. “His passing has left a hole in our lives that can never be filled,” Harold Hernandez said. At press time on Oct. 6, the GoFundMe had raised over $14,000 towards its $16,000 goal. His funeral is scheduled for Oct. 10.

While the precise cause of Hernandez’s death has yet to be determined, it’s suspected his expiration was induced by the stress of his confrontation with the thief.

“For some reason security wasn’t around so my father stepped up,” Hernandez’s son Henry said. “He was trying to prevent the theft. There was a struggle with a lot of shoving and swinging going on.”

If that is indeed the case, while Hernandez’s passing would be considered accidental, it would also be counted among the many dire consequences of New York’s lax laws against shoplifting.

Such attitudes not only encourage theft but also contribute to recidivism, often for more violent crimes, and sometimes punish store owners who attempt to stop aggressive pilfering and other bad behavior in their stores.

Take the case of Scotty Enoe, for example, who was working as a shelf stocker at the CVS at Broadway and West 49th in July 2023 when an encounter with an aggressive shoplifter turned violent. When the thief, Charles Brito, started viciously beating Enoe, the CVS worker took out his knife and stabbed Brito to death—saving his own life and potentially those of his co-workers.

Manhattan D.A. Attorney Alvin Bragg didn’t agree and hit Enoe with a slew of charges that kept the hardworking Grenada native on Rikers Island for a week on $100,000 bail.

Well, this past July, Enoe was acquitted of the charges, and in September, he had his record “wiped clean.” To say that the 48-year-old immigrant isn’t happy with the ordeal is an understatement.

There’s also the case of then-60-year-old Jose Alba, the Dominican bodega worker in Washington Heights who stabbed violent ex-con Austin Simon to death in July 2022. Bragg’s prosecution of Alba caused widespread outrage and was eventually dropped.

The no-bail system routinely gives shoplifters free rein—such as that afforded Jacob Poole, who had 75 prior arrests when Crime Watch reported on him last May

Hernandez met death following an encounter with someone stealing beer. Few serial shoplifters steal because they are actually hungry—New York City has ample food programs for the poor. They steal to sell their ill-gotten wares. The thief in this case dropped the half case of Heineken he was attempting to steal and fled empty-handed.

Hernandez had worked at the Morton Williams more than 10 years, taking an overnight shift while he worked another part-time day job.

“My father, let’s just say he was just everybody’s backbone,” son Henry told the New York Post. “He was always looking out for everybody, even people that he didn’t even know.”