tl,dr: Employees: You should quit. Customers: CVS leadership are sociopaths enabled by your continued patronage; stop shopping there. Other employers: Give ex-CVS employees a break.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CVS/comments/tk2m2x/how_dumb_can_cvs_be_basically_means_its_open/
Assuming the above is true, CVS couldn't have designed a situation more suited to shoplifting if it had tried.
I'm aware that employees of many retailers are forbidden by policy from interfering with shoplifting in any way. But CVS takes it one step further: Now employees are forbidden from even calling the police unless violence breaks out.
In @OP+1c0MEkZZ I demonstrated that members of CVS's leadership are sociopaths. This is just further proof.
To other customers: Stop shopping at CVS. Seriously. Try other retailers and you will see the difference in service.
To CVS employees. You have my empathy. And here is advice I never thought I'd give to a large group of employees: Quit. CVS is burning down, and at this rate it wouldn't surprise me if someone does manage to burn down a store in the literal sense.
To other employers: Do your own research, both here and at r/CVS. Ask yourself "would I really hold a negative reference, or a no-notice resignation, against a candidate under these circumstances?" You don't have to buy in to CVS's lunacy. You can decide for yourself if you will take any notice of any negative remarks from CVS management about a potential hire. Just be glad that the CVS employee made it out alive.