clipped from: today.reuters.com 
BERLIN, Dec 12 (Reuters Life!) - German shoppers sprang to the help of a shoplifter who was being detained after trying to steal clothes at a department store, wrongly assuming she was being attacked by strangers, police said on Tuesday.
Two store detectives caught a woman in her mid-30s stealing garments in the city of Mainz near Frankfurt and attempted to detain her for questioning, police said.
But the woman tried to free herself, and bit, kicked and hit the detectives who wrestled her down in a skirmish, prompting passers-by worried about her safety to help her.
"They hauled the detectives away from her ... The woman managed to run away," Mainz police said in a statement.