The world of retail is filled with people who are honestly just looking to make a purchase and go home. There are literally thousands of them in a store in any given day. Unfortunately they aren't the ones retail workers remember. Retail workers remember the ones that are strange, different, odd, and most notably they remember the criminals.
When in charge, a supervisor or manager is responsible for ensuring cashiers follow policy and procedure. At a time when I was in charge, I noted an individual known for credit card fraud come into the store. I notified my cashiers and then got caught up in the minutia of doing my job. Then I found out one of the cashiers did the exact opposite of what I had told him. The instructions were simple: when this guy gets to your register, examine everything he's buying in detail and make sure the ID matches the card he gives you to pay with exactly. If anything looks even slightly fishy, call me.
Instead, he asked the customer for ID and when the customer got angry about it he backed down and just let the transaction go through. He didn't call me, he didn't call a manager, he didn't ask anyone else for help. He just...let it go. As a result the company ended up eating several hundred dollars in preventable credit card fraud.
What it comes down to is accountability. If he had called me for back-up and I had allowed the sale to go through, it would have come down on me. As it is, he ended up disciplined for something completely avoidable if he had only followed the directions he'd been given and passed responsibility on to someone of a higher rank. I don't necessarily blame him for being afraid. In this day and age, the guy could have pulled a gun and started firing. You can't live your life constantly afraid that everyone around you has a weapon and is willing to shoot. Living like that, you'll never leave your house. The reality is there are good and bad operators out there. Yes, there will be nut jobs who go at you with a weapon. There are more who are just looking to make a quick buck however they can. This guy was a known operator, he'd been in the store before, and he typically buckled whenever a manager came to tell him no. It was completely avoidable, but the cashier let fear dictate his actions instead of falling back on policy.
Reality is harsh, but it is what it is. You can either deal with it or bury your head in the sand.