Wow they never proved he was stealing them but clearly he was. You would think that it was strange that he always set off the metal detector. Once or twice I would be ok what is going on after that I would be doing a better check of the person setting it off.
A lot of metal detectors are frankly more sensitive than they need to be. I have to pass through a metal detector when leaving work myself, and it pings on me regularly, even after I went to the trouble of hunting down a metal free belt.
Having to process a lot of people in a day, the people running the things get desensitized to the alerts. Not to the point of not doing their job, but I'm not surprised they didn't investigate this man, whom they presumably trusted, further.
Many metal detectors are used to detect metal. Even a trace. If you ding going through or many people ding going though consistently then further searches of you or those people need to be conducted. There is a reason it is going off and you magnetic personality is not the reason why. If those running the metal detectors are not taking their jobs seriously then they need replaced. The fact that they allowed this is a very clear indication that they did get to complacent or desensitized to the dings and failed in their job duties.
Firefighters rescue woman trapped in donation bin
A woman who may have been trying to take items out of an East Village donation bin had to be rescued over the weekend after she was trapped inside the box. Firefighters said the woman had passed out and was unresponsive. She was taken to a hospital for treatment. Ref. Source 9v.