Sunday, July 26, 2020

Scroll down for Shoplifters Policy

This is in the news and I will put it at the top of the Blog FYI.

Walmart and others will still serve customers who refuse to wear masks, despite new rules

NEWS - by: CNNwire - Updated: Jul 24, 2020 / 12:38 PM EDT
(CNN) — Walmart and other major retailers made headlines last week with a new requirement for customers to wear masks in its US stores. But the new rules only go so far.

List: Major retailers requiring customers to wear masks amid coronavirus pandemic:
Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Walgreens, CVS and others say they still won’t prohibit customers who refuse to wear a mask from shopping in stores. The issue, they say, is they want to avoid confrontations between angry customers and employees.

Retailers and their employees are finding themselves playing the uncomfortable role of mask police. The increase in coronavirus cases is prompting concern over how to protect both customers and workers in crowded stores from infecting each other.

There is no federal mandate to wear a mask, and many state and local governments have not required wearing one. This has forced retailers to navigate a patchwork system and left them in the position of having to create their own policies.

I-Team learns how city of Cleveland plans to enforce mask mandate:
“Many retailers feel like they have to act since some governors haven’t,” said Melissa Murdock, spokesperson for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents companies such as Walmart, Target, Walgreens and others. The group wrote to the National Governors Association on July 6, saying that public officials should issue uniform mask mandates across all 50 states.

Labor advocates and retailers agree that store employees should not be the ones enforcing mask wearing. But it’s not clear who will fill the void.

Critics say that makes the new wave of retailers’ mask requirements toothless.

“Either security or management needs to tell people that they must wear a face mask in order to be served. It’s no different than wearing shoes or a shirt,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. If companies “are not requiring customers to wear a mask within their store, then they never had a requirement. All they had was a public relations stunt.”

Violent incidents
Anti-maskers have sparked violent incidents at stores, restaurants and other businesses over requirements to wear them. A security guard at a Family Dollar store in Michigan was shot and killed in May after he told a customer to wear a mask. In recent weeks, videos of confrontations between angry customers and clerks at Costco, Target and other stores over these rules have gone viral.

Companies want to avoid such incidents.

Walmart, the largest retailer in the country, said it would station employees it calls health ambassadors at the entrance of stores to remind shoppers about mask compliance as they enter.

But a short training video for health ambassadors makes clear there are limits to the job. If a customer refuses to wear a mask, health ambassadors are instructed to let the employee into the store and notify management “so that they can determine the next steps.”

In talking points for Walmart ambassadors and management, a member of management is instructed to ask if the customer would like a complimentary mask. If the customer refuses, “let them continue to shop,” the talking points say. The video tells ambassadors never to engage with a customer physically or try to block their entrance into the store.

“With every requirement there are exceptions that have been established to avoid escalating the situation and putting our associates in harm’s way,” a Walmart representative said. “Our goal is to keep associates from a physical confrontation in the stores.”

VIDEO: Police looking for man seen assaulting worker who told him to wait outside store due to mask policy
Walmart is also adding signs about the policies, which exempt small children and people who can’t wear masks due to health conditions or religious beliefs, and announcing them over store loudspeaker.

The home improvement chain Lowe’s says it’s also added signs at its stores, requesting that customers wear masks for the safety of everyone. It is also providing free masks to customers who need them.

“We will not ask our associates to put their safety at risk by confronting customers about wearing masks,” a Lowe’s representative said.

Indeed, a Home Depot spokesperson compared the company’s mask requirement to its shoplifting policy, where employees are told not to block the entrance or chase after a customer. “It’s too dangerous to forcibly or physically deny entry.”

Meanwhile, CVS said it will “ask for [customers’] cooperation” with the mask policy. “In the event of non-compliance [the store] will expedite their transaction and provide them with other options for their future needs,” such as delivery and drive-thru,” a representative for the company said.

Retailers internationally are also making similar calculations.

Face masks in shops also became mandatory in the United Kingdom Friday. People can be fined £100 ($127.48) for not wearing one, with some exceptions for medical conditions. Leading retailers have said they will encourage customers to wear masks but won’t enforce the law themselves. That means people without masks will still get served.

Asda, the British supermarket chain which Walmart put up for sale this week, said it would “strongly encourage” customers to wear a face covering and would have masks available to buy at the front of stores. Luxury London department store Harrods said the government list of exemptions means staff will have to be “mindful and respectful” when asking customers to wear masks. Swedish furniture maker IKEA, which has 22 stores in the UK, said it would proactively encourage wearing masks, but that the government has asked the police to handle enforcement.

“While enforcement of this policy will be handled by the police, the ultimate responsibility remains with customers who must ensure that they wear a face covering when going into stores,” said Tom Ironside, director of business and regulation at the British Retail Consortium.

Police: Woman asked to wear mask drives over officer’s foot, flips off workers
‘Makes complete business sense’
Companies in recent weeks shifted their own policies on masks in response to the coronavirus raging across of the country and record cases in many states across the South and West.

“This was the right time to implement the requirement in our stores” to stop the spread of coronavirus and protect workers and customers, the Walmart spokesperson said. “Our requirement is going [to] result in many more people wearing masks than before.”

Companies, public health experts and retail consultants say the growing public acceptance of masks helped spur these policy changes.

Retailers want to signal to customers that stores are safe to shop at, and requiring masks can help them achieve that, said Chris Walton, former Target executive and now CEO of the retail blog Omni Talk.

Leslie Dach, former Walmart executive vice president of corporate affairs and government relations, said Walmart’s “decision makes complete business sense. “

“Customers want to shop at places they feel safe,” he added. “Having customers wear masks protects employees and protects customers.”

Chains also made the policy changes after more cities, counties and states required masks in public spaces. Walmart, for example, said that 65% of its more than 5,000 US stores and Sam’s Clubs were in areas where there is a government mandate on face coverings. Target said that figure for its more than 1,800 stores was around 80%.

Around 85% of Home Depot stores were under requirements because of state mandates, and the company “wanted to make it consistent across the board,” the Home Depot spokesperson said.

Some retailers have increased their hiring of private security guards to help diffuse confrontations over masks.

Companies also have varying policies on whether to call the cops. CVS and Home Depot said they would not call the police if a customer did not wear a mask in an area where mask wearing is mandated. However, the Home Depot representative said “if a customer becomes combative or habitually refuses to comply, we’ll take further action to prevent them from entering our stores.”

A spokesperson for Walmart said “while we do try to find solutions for customers who are not wearing face coverings, from time to time we do need to call police for assistance in those areas” if customers become belligerent.

Meegan Holland, spokesperson for the Michigan Retailers Association, said, “we would love for police to be more a part of the enforcement role, but that hasn’t happened.”

Friday, December 22, 2017

Friday, December 22, 2017

Before we get to the Wal Mart AP info I have dropped into the blog site some recently published information on Wally World and their mis-use of local Police all over the USA. 

 Feel free to skip over this if it is not useful to you.


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Thousands of police calls.
You paid the bill.

Tampa Bay Walmarts get thousands of police calls. You paid the bill.


Police come to shoo away panhandlers, referee parking disputes and check on foul-mouthed teenagers.
They are called to arrest the man who drinks a 98-cent iced tea without paying and capture the customer who joyrides on a motorized shopping cart.


BODY CAM VIDEO





The calls eat up hours of officers’ time. They all start at one place:
Walmart.
Law enforcement logged nearly 16,800 calls in one year to Walmarts in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando counties
, according to a Tampa Bay Times analysis. That’s two calls an hour, every hour, every day.
Local Walmarts, on average, generated four times as many calls as nearby Targets, the Times found. Many individual supercenters attracted more calls than the much larger WestShore Plaza mall.
When it comes to calling the cops, Walmart is such an outlier compared with its competitors that experts criticized the corporate giant for shifting too much of its security burden onto taxpayers. Several local law enforcement officers also emphasized that all the hours spent at Walmart cut into how often they can patrol other neighborhoods and prevent other crimes.
“They’re a huge problem in terms of the amount of time that’s spent there,” said Tampa police Officer James Smith, who specializes in retail crime. “We are, as a department, at the mercy of what they want to do.”
The Times reviewed thousands of records and interviewed dozens of officers and experts to provide an unprecedented look at the impact 53 Walmarts had on local policing.
Among the findings:
  • Sheriff’s deputies in Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando counties were called to individual Walmart stores more than to any other location — by far. The same went for police in Largo, Pinellas Park, Tarpon Springs, Dade City, Plant City, Brooksville and Port Richey. For authorities in Pinellas and St. Petersburg, Walmarts were the second busiest locations.
  • Officers logged fewer than 500 calls for violence, drugs or weapons. They took roughly another 7,000 calls for potential thefts. An even bigger category was general disorder, everything from suspected trespassing to parking violations, lost property and people sleeping outside stores. Those roughly 9,000 calls consumed hundreds of hours of officers’ time, but resulted in just a few hundred arrests.
  • Many businesses paid a lot more in property taxes than the local Walmart but were much less of a burden on police. The Tyrone Square Mall in St. Petersburg, for instance, paid nearly four times as much in taxes as three nearby supercenters combined. Still, the mall attracted fewer police calls.
  • Officers know Walmart is such a regular trouble spot that they routinely show up without being called.
     They simply hover around stores and parking lots to avert further issues, providing even more taxpayer-funded crime prevention. The Times found 6,200 of these unsolicited visits on top of the 16,800 other calls.
Walmart stores, with heavy foot traffic and cavernous layouts, are natural targets for shoplifters, panhandlers and other opportunists. Many are located in disadvantaged areas prone to more trouble. The retailer knows all of that, experts said, but doesn’t do enough to address the problems, despite ample resources. Walmart, they said, lays out its stores in a way that invites trouble and often doesn’t have enough uniformed employees to make sure everything runs smoothly.
Companies should do as much as they can to keep their properties in order before leaning on police, said Charles Fishman, author of The Wal-Mart Effect, a book about the retailer’s growth and social impact. He equated Walmart’s high volume of calls to the parents of a misbehaving 11-year-old who call 911 every time their child acts out.
“That’s not what police are for,” he said.
Walmart said it is doing what it must to thwart thieves and protect its merchandise. Spokesman Aaron Mullins said the company’s specialists do “a really great job of identifying people who are breaking the law” and they “partner very closely with local law enforcement.”
“Any type of criminal activity that might be happening in our stores we take very seriously,” he said, “and we have processes in place to address that aggressively.”

Thousands of calls, little security

Walmart’s approach to handling problems is more “tough love” than “let’s talk it out.” The style descends from founder Sam Walton, a scrappy, no-nonsense businessman who famously wrote in his autobiography that theft is “one of the biggest enemies of profitability.”
His company became the world’s largest retailer, far exceeding other big box chains. Everything about Walmart is enormous: about 11,000 stores in 28 countries, 140 million weekly customers in the United States alone, $15 billion in annual profits.
But Walmart squeezes those profits from razor thin margins. The theft of a $4 pair of socks can obliterate the return on the next $100 in sales. So the company, experts said, relies heavily on police to protect its bottom line, starting with shoplifting.
Of the 7,000 calls in Tampa Bay in 2014 for suspected thefts, many were for items totaling less than $300, the threshold for when petty theft becomes grand theft. The Times found calls for items worth much less — a $10 gas can, $3 eye drops, $2 chocolates.
Another 9,000 calls were for basic disorder, everything from dealing with the drunk man talking loudly at the deli to checking on juveniles suspected of skipping school. Officers also responded for 911 hang-ups, follow-up investigations, or simply to take down information and collect lost property.
Those calls — some made by Walmart employees, others by customers — included more than 1,000 for suspected trespassers, another 1,000 for suspicious people and cars, and another 1,000 for suspected panhandling, loitering, noise complaints and “disturbances.”
“Law enforcement becomes in effect a taxpayer-paid private security source for Walmart,”
 said New York-based leading retail analyst Burt Flickinger.

Why they show up

Tampa Bay's Walmarts attracted more than 16,000 calls in 2014
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Source: Times analysis
Perhaps more than any other big-box retailer, Walmart caters to low-income shoppers looking to buy everything from vegetables to televisions as cheaply as possible. Walmart sometimes opens stores in neighborhoods where the threat of crime is higher. Employees at many stores know that at least a few desperate, drug-addled or ill-intentioned customers will pass through their doors every day.
A lot of shoppers “are struggling,” said Michael Garafano, 23, a former maintenance worker, cashier and floor associate at two stores in Brandon. “So there’s just a lot of stress.”
That’s all the more reason for a for-profit company like Walmart to adequately secure its stores, experts said. One solution: Hire more uniformed security guards. Research shows that they effectively deter misbehaving customers and can cut down on theft. Malls, for instance, often employ guards to manage everyday nuisances like noise complaints and loitering teens. Some Publix stores have guards in brown uniforms near the door.
Private security guards perform “all of those policing functions to both prevent the low-level disorder and also to respond to it, only calling police if in their judgment it might turn violent,” said Michael Scott, director of the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing.
Walmart makes plenty of money and attracts so many police calls “that it would be reasonable to expect them to hire their own private security,” said Scott, also a former Lauderhill police chief in Broward County.
Walmart would not say how many of its Tampa Bay stores have uniformed guards. Times reporters visited all of the area’s supercenters and regular-sized Walmarts and noticed only five had a security officer, all located at the entrance. A half-dozen had greeters near the door, an old Walmart staple whose job it is to say hello to the streams of people coming in and out. The company recently announced plans to add more greeters to stores nationwide. Starting in October, Walmart paid to have an off-duty police officer posted at one St. Petersburg store, on 34th Street N, for 12 hours a day.
Garafano did not remember seeing many uniformed guards at the two stores where he worked. He said more security would have helped.
“If you see a guy in a uniform or something,” he said, “you’re probably not going to steal anything or cause trouble because you'll think, this guy’s going to bust me.”
More uniformed guards are just one option. Research shows that firm, experienced managers or well-trained employees can easily deal with many small issues. They can scare off loiterers or banish drunk customers.
Walmart deals with high staff turnover, said Flickinger, the New York-based retail analyst, and it eliminated many management positions in recent years to offset wage increases.
“Walmart looks at everything as cost instead of investment,” he said.

‘Tremendous strain’ on police

The heavy load weighs on police in every Tampa Bay county.
The Times asked local law enforcement agencies for the three places their officers responded to most in 2014. The lists included parks and busy intersections, hospitals and mental health facilities. A few malls made it. So did a retirement community and a youth shelter. The lists hardly ever included large retailers such as Target, Publix and the Home Depot.
But Walmart dominated.
Pasco sheriff’s deputies, for instance, were called to two individual Walmarts more than to any other commercial location in their jurisdiction. Walmarts also ranked No. 1 and No. 2 for the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office. In Largo, Walmart was first and third on the list.
Hillsborough sheriff’s deputies ended up at a Walmart on Fletcher Avenue more than any other location. What came second? Another Walmart. What was third? Another Walmart. In fact, seven of the Sheriff’s Office’s 10 busiest locations were Walmarts.

“It is a tremendous strain on manpower,” Sheriff’s Col. Greg Brown wrote in an email
 to the Times.

At Walmart more than anywhere else

The Times asked 13 police departments for the top three places they visited in 2014. Each box represents one place.
Next =>
Source: Times analysis
Some overworked agencies have demanded that Walmart make changes. The police chief in Beech Grove, Ind., once deemed the local Walmart a nuisance and threatened it with fines of up to $2,500 for every small shoplifting call. About three months later, calls had fallen by almost two-thirds.
“At what point do you say, this one individual is taking enough resources that it is interfering with other functions?” said Seth Stoughton, a University of South Carolina law professor and former Tallahassee police officer. “There are other jobs that we could be doing, and we need to change the way that we respond.”
In Port Richey, population 2,700, the department’s handful of patrol officers fielded more than 450 calls in a year from the one Walmart in its jurisdiction, nearly three times as many as their next busiest commercial location, a WaWa gas station. Those calls led to about 200 arrests.
In August, a Walmart employee called the department after a 33-year-old man stole a $6.39 electric toothbrush. The officer arrived in three minutes, talked to a Walmart employee, arrested the man, and then made the 19-mile trip to the Land O’Lakes jail. After finishing the paperwork, the officer was free to take another call.
Total elapsed time: 2 ½ hours.
Port Richey Assistant Chief William Ferguson calculated that the arrests chewed up nearly 500 hours of officer time, at a department that sometimes has only two officers on patrol. That doesn’t include all the other calls that didn’t lead to arrests.
Port Richey police asked Walmart about hiring off-duty officers, but company officials never responded, he said. The city would be better served, Ferguson said, if police officers used all that time to drive through neighborhoods and head off other crimes.
“They can’t do that when they’re spending God knows how many hours at Walmart,” he said.
“It’s almost like we’re Walmart’s personal police transportation agency.”

Far above Target

Walmart’s aggressive approach, the Times found, leads it to demand far more from police than Target.
Reporters compared a year’s worth of calls at Walmarts and Targets within the same police jurisdictions or just a few miles apart. The 10 Walmarts had more than 5,100 calls compared with fewer than 1,100 at the 10 Targets.

In Pinellas Park, for instance, a supercenter on U.S. 19 competes with a Target less than a mile away.
Walmart calls — 712.
Target calls — 195.
In Clearwater, the Target on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard is bigger than the nearby Walmart.
Walmart calls — 392.
Target calls — 107.
The discrepancy was more stark on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard near the Hillsborough-Pasco county line.
Walmart calls — 531.
Target calls — 52.

Walmart vs Target

The Times reviewed 10 Walmarts and close-by Targets.
In every case, Walmart had more calls.
Total: 586Total: 138NEXT ==>201 34th St N,St. Pete8158 Dr MLK JrSt N, St. PeteWALMARTTARGET
Source: Times analysis
In most cases, the Walmart stores were larger than the Targets. TheTimes accounted for the size difference by calculating the number of calls for every 10,000 square feet of store space. Even then, the Walmarts averaged more than three times the calls, producing about 30 per 10,000 square feet compared with only about nine at Target.
Reporters also considered that Walmart stores are often open overnight, while Targets close at 11 p.m. or earlier. But the Timesanalysis found that most police calls came during the afternoon and evening hours when both Walmart and Target are open. Only about 11 percent came during the overnight hours.
Unlike Walmart, Target seems to have more uniformed employees strolling the aisles, which helps cut down on problems, said Flickinger, a retail consultant who has worked with many national chains. Walmart’s choice to stay open late and its success in attracting shoppers does not absolve it of the responsibility to reduce problems on its property, he added.
“Rather than store security and store management taking care of the problem, as many other retailers would take care of the security,” he said, “the call is made to (Tampa Bay) law enforcement.”
Target declined to comment on its security or its competition with Walmart.
In 2012, Target’s then-vice president for assets protection, Brad Brekke, said it was “no secret that retail theft — particularly low-level offending — consumes an enormous amount of public and private resources.”
“Here at Target, we are taking an active and engaged role in alleviating some of this burden on the criminal justice system,” he said.
Emily Gold LaGratta, who co-authored a 2012 Center for Court Innovation shoplifting study in conjunction with Target, would not comment on Target’s approach specifically, but said that “relatively small tweaks to (corporate) policies could have an impact on how many times police get called.” One option? A retailer might only call police for repeat offenders, or if the offender steals items that exceed a specified threshold, such as $50.
A decade ago, for instance, Walmart announced plans to stop calling authorities for some first-time shoplifters who stole items totaling less than $25. Walmart would not talk about whether it is still enforcing that policy today.
Wyatt Jefferies, a Walmart spokesman, spoke more openly about a diversion program the company adopted in select places about three years ago. Instead of calling police, the store gives first-time shoplifters the option of paying restitution and completing online courses. Eight Tampa Bay stores are enrolled, he said, and the retailer is assessing whether it will expand the program here and elsewhere.
“We’ve already seen significant impact from their ability to alleviate pressure on local law enforcement for low-risk offenders,” Jefferies said.
Walmart attracts more foot traffic than other retailers. More customers, Jefferies said, means more potential for crime, which results in more calls to police.
“It almost looks like Walmart is being penalized for following the law in a way,” he said.

Walking through ‘chaos’

On a Tuesday afternoon, Wesley Jennings stepped into a Tampa Walmart with a Times reporter and immediately began describing how the retailer creates an environment that encourages problems.
The store was loud and frenetic, the fluorescent lights extra bright. He saw racks overflowing with clothes, a shelf crammed with printer cartridges, boxes scattered in the middle of an aisle.
“There’s just very limited open space,” said Jennings, a University of South Florida professor with degrees in criminology and psychology, “and then there’s literally tons of products.”
Near the electronics department, tall cardboard displays blocked sightlines, creating pockets where an opportunist could feel alone, unseen, safe to steal. He peered up at the ceiling-mounted video cameras. Shoplifters notice those, he said, but often think they aren’t working or can’t zoom in close enough to record them shoving items into their pockets.
Jennings saw fewer than a dozen uniformed employees walking inside the 212,000-square-foot building. Nowhere did he see uniformed security.
Stores are like neighborhoods, he said. If they look tidy, research shows, they signal that the residents are paying attention. Walmarts can feel messy and disheveled. The “chaos,” Jennings said, allows troublemakers to rationalize that the company doesn’t care. It also sends the message that they might get away with it.
See what it’s like to be a police officer at Walmart
Tampa Bay Times
Last August, a teenager at a supercenter in Hudson pocketed an $18 audio cable. A specially trained Walmart employee who works undercover to catch thieves spotted him. When loss prevention associates see a shoplifter, they dart between aisles, shadowing their targets and relaying movements into radios or cell phones before surrounding suspects at the door.
A loss prevention associate walked the teenager to a narrow office and called the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office. Two deputies spent more than 50 minutes working on the call.
The boy cussed and hung his head. He had more than a hundred dollars in his pocket. He said he hadn’t planned to steal anything when he walked into the store.
“I could have paid for ... nine of them,” he said.
A body camera captured Deputy Jason Logue reflecting on Walmart’s surveillance system and the volume of calls at the supercenter.
“Unfortunately, it just seems to be a big revolving door,” said Logue, before leading the teenager to a patrol car. “We do all this work, and then I feel like a month later I’m dealing with the same guy all over again.”

A taxpayer problem

Walmart pays taxes — a lot of taxes — and like any taxpayer is entitled to government services including help from police. The company is a “commercial citizen,” noted Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, that “doesn’t deserve to get ripped off by people.”
But other companies, including some of Walmart’s competitors, pay a lot of taxes, too, and they don’t have nearly the same impact on police.
In east Hillsborough, for instance, a Walmart paid close to the same amount in property taxes as a nearby Target. But the Walmart also had more than four times as many police calls, the Times found.
In Clearwater, a Walmart on U.S. 19 paid less in property taxes than a nearby Target. Yet police wound up at the Walmart more than three times as often.
In Plant City, the Walmart on James L. Redman Parkway was the eighth biggest taxpayer, just ahead of a nearby shopping plaza with a Publix, Bealls, CVS and several restaurants. Still, the Walmart alone had nearly three times more calls than the entire plaza.
The Walmart, in fact, had more police calls than the shopping plazaplus the city’s seven other biggest taxpayers combined.
“We always have to plan for a busy day at Walmart,” said Plant City police Sgt. Alfred Van Duyne.

The Times also compared Walmart’s share of police calls to its share of all the property taxes paid in four cities. To do this, reporters focused only on calls to properties that paid taxes, and eliminated calls involving places like parks, intersections and most churches. The result? Walmart’s slice of calls was consistently larger than its slice of tax payments. Much larger.
Take the Broad Street supercenter in Brooksville. Walmart’s portion of police calls was twice as big as its portion of real estate taxes paid.

The gap was even wider at supercenters in Plant City, Port Richey and St. Petersburg.
When the Times asked about the volume of calls, Jefferies noted in an email that Walmart paid nearly $15 million in annual property taxes across Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando counties. He also offered that the company contributed millions of dollars to charities across Florida. In Tampa Bay, Walmart has donated to shelters and toy drives and sponsored community events.
“Walmart is a proud member of the Tampa Bay community,” Jefferies wrote. “We’ve created job opportunities … and strengthened communities, including police and fire departments, throughout the state of Florida.”

Waiting for more calls

Responding to Walmart has become so routine that officers show up without even being called. They drive slowly through the parking lot or stop to write unrelated reports. Other times they go inside and walk the aisles, or just buy a soda.
For patrol officers, these unsolicited visits to Walmarts are an easy decision, said Scott, the former Lauderhill police chief.
“Look, I either get called there later, or I go there now and prevent things,” he said.
The Times found more than 6,200 of these visits, on top of the other 16,800 calls.
Garafano, the former Walmart employee in Brandon, said he sometimes saw sheriff's patrol cars parked near the supercenter on East Brandon Boulevard, even when nothing was happening.
“It was almost like they were kind of just waiting to get a call,” he said.
Assistant Chief Ferguson, who worked for Tampa police from 1989 until 2014 before moving to Port Richey, remembers shift supervisors conducting daily roll call in the parking lot of a Walmart on Dale Mabry Highway. A dozen cruisers would pull in, and a jail transport van was often parked outside, too, he said. Officers hoped the show of force would stop troublemakers before they even walked inside the store.
Targets did not receive so much unsolicited attention, the Timesfound.
Police, for instance, conducted nearly 2,400 of what are often called “directed patrols” at six Walmarts compared with about 1,150 at six nearby Targets. Not all agencies performed directed patrols — or recorded them — in the same way, so the Times limited the comparison to stores within the same jurisdictions. In Clearwater, for instance, police logged 273 directed patrols at a Walmart compared with 76 at a larger Target fewer than three miles away.
The directed patrols, Scott said, in some ways reward bad behavior: Walmart creates so much work for police that they feel obligated to give the retailer even more attention, free of charge. That further cuts into the time officers can spend at other places, he said.
“Obviously all of those other businesses are not getting that officer’s attention,” he said. “All of the residential areas around (the store) are not getting it.”

With no fix, the problems continue

As long as calls keep coming, police will keep showing up. It’s their job to respond.

“We’re going to service them, whether it’s twice a day or 200 times a day,” said Van Duyne, the Plant City police sergeant.
To cut down on at least some of those calls, a few Tampa Bay agencies are experimenting with stationing cruisers and portable cameras in parking lots. Others, including the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office and Zephyrhills police, have reached out to Walmart to discuss solutions.
Police can make small fixes. But Ronald Clarke, a Rutgers University criminal justice professor, said the onus is on Walmart to change its policies.
“The public sector is sort of just a victim of this particular problem,” said Clarke, who wrote a Department of Justice guide on shoplifting prevention. “There's nothing much they can do. The people that can do anything about it are the private agencies that are selling the goods. That's really the truth.”
For now, the calls continue to pour in.
The Times checked four area supercenters — one each in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando — and found that total calls remained steady from 2014 to 2015.
At the Zephyrhills Walmart, retail theft arrests nearly doubled in the first six months of 2015. Capt. Derek Brewer said a Walmart manager attributed the increase to better trained loss prevention associates stopping more people.
In Clearwater last May, two Walmart associates spotted a man in a green shirt take a 98-cent bottle of sweet tea from a cooler, drink most of it and set it down in the candy department. A loss prevention specialist stopped him at the exit.
A police officer worked two hours on the case, including filling out paperwork for a petty theft charge. Before posting bail, the man spent 10 days in jail, a cost of about $1,230 to taxpayers.
The officer asked the man what happened.
“I was thirsty,” he said.
Times news researchers John Martin, Caryn Baird and Carolyn Edds contributed to this report. Contact Zachary T. Sampson atzsampson@tampabay.com or follow @zacksampson, Laura C. Morel atlmorel@tampabay.com or follow @lauracmorel, and Eli Murray atemurray@tampabay.com or follow @Eli_Mur.

Find your local Walmart

Leaflet | Map tiles by Stamen Design, under CC BY 3.0. Data by OpenStreetMap, under ODbL.

About the data

For this project, Tampa Bay Times reporters requested police calls from the 15 law enforcement agencies that patrolled at least one Walmart in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco or Hernando counties in 2014.
Authorities provided the Times with records of 29,669 calls. TheTimes excluded 6,100 calls such as emergency medical situations, calls to assist other agencies, warrant checks and probation violations. They also eliminated duplicate calls, including in Tampa, where police sometimes logged one incident twice under different two-letter codes. This process meant erring on the side of undercounting police calls to Walmarts.
Sometimes authorities attributed calls to Walmart that did not take place on store property, including many traffic crashes and violations that occurred on the streets near a Walmart. The reporters could eliminate most of those calls, though it’s possible some made it into the final count.
The Times also separated out roughly 6,200 calls commonly known as directed patrols or business checks. They are calls self-initiated by the officers, not by a complaint from someone at a store.
After stripping excluded calls and directed patrols, the Times found that local authorities responded to Walmarts in Tampa Bay nearly 16,800 times in one year.
Reporters also asked each police agency for a list of the locations where their officers or deputies received the most calls. Most of the agencies provided the Times with their own filtered lists. The Timesreporters then excluded calls logged to police headquarters, jails or courthouses. Brooksville, St. Petersburg, and Plant City provided spreadsheets of every call for service in 2014, from which reporters determined the busiest locations. The reporters filtered the data for those three agencies to exclude off-duty calls and directed patrols.
For the tax comparisons, reporters requested the total amount of property taxes paid within St. Petersburg, Brooksville, Port Richey and Plant City. They then calculated a percentage for how much Walmart contributed to each city. For most cities, the Times only looked at real estate taxes, excluding tangible taxes. The Brooksville property tax comparison includes tangible taxes because the tax collector’s office could not provide a breakdown. Reporters did not look at state sales tax records because they are exempt from public record, and because sales tax is ultimately paid by the customer, not the store.
The arrest data includes both physical arrests, where a suspect was taken to jail, and notices to appear, citations that order a suspect to show up in court at a later date.
The Times, throughout its reporting, consulted with more than 55 law enforcement leaders and experts on retail crime. Reporters contacted Walmart three times, once with a summary of their findings.

About the reporters

ZACHARY T. SAMPSON covers crime and breaking news in St. Petersburg. He joined the Times in September 2014. Raised in Rhode Island, he graduated from Northeastern University, where he studied journalism and sociology.
LAURA C. MOREL covers law enforcement and courts in Pinellas County. She joined the Times in May 2012. Born and raised in Miami, she speaks Spanish and holds degrees from Miami Dade College and Emerson College in Boston.
ELI MURRAY is a data reporter and news applications developer. He joined the Times in 2015 and graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign with a degree in journalism. He grew up in Illinois.
Editor: Graham Brink
Video production: Tracee Stockwell
Photography: Jim Damaske, Doug Clifford and Boyzell Hosey
Online design: Martin Frobisher
Research: John Martin, Caryn Baird and Carolyn Edds
See original article at:  http://www.tampabay.com/projects/2016/public-safety/walmart-police/

Share your thoughts


666 Comments

100 days ago
mrsprotosow
As far as I am informed, getting arrested is not "free" to the offender.  The criminal justice system piles fees on the offender that enrich government coffers and in the cumulative denies benefits that the offender may really need and qualify to receive.  Crazy system.  Being forced to dig your own grave comes to mind. Emphasis should be on prevention.  When did we stop being citizens of the richest country in the world and only materialistic "taxpayers"?  Wrongheaded and short sighted on all parts.  What ever happened to a system of restitution of the real value of the item in question?  Should be simple to implement with computers.. not one can of peas goes astray.  

121 days ago
Saul Korn
They bz" Wallmartmartians " ! 
273 days ago
William Malmstrom
Yeah, in addition to paying for WalMart's security, I also pay for the food stamps that their employees need to stay alive, since they don't get a living wage.  & because of their low wages, we also need to pay additional aca subsidies on their health insurance.  More corporate welfare.  

100 days ago
Sterngard
Exactly. The Waltons are America's biggest welfare queens. They have no shame.

Slurrrrrp.

285 days ago
Harry Chamberlain
In our PC culture there is no shoplifting anymore, it is called "non-traditional shopping".

324 days ago
Gary Brandt
The State or each county can pass a Criminal Justice statute which would require the following: " any business which requires extra police services based on an incidence of crime which measures to be 150% over the county norm, SHALL provide a portable trailer to be located within it's parking lot, and said trailer will be labeled, e.g. "Pinellas County Police" and said trail shall be equipped with modern communications equipment and two temporary confinement cells.  Said trailer shall be paid for in it's entirety by the business."    Then local Police can use the trailer to process arrests, call for a Police van pickup of those arrested and use the trailer for normal administrative functions related to police administration.  Essentially, the Walmarts will create small sub-stations for Police, and Walmart will pay for it.  Evidence of a police sub-station in these parking lots will deter criminals.  It has worked in other geographic locations. 
379 days ago
John Lalleman
EASY TO FIX----IF YOU ARE A CRIMINAL , DONT GO TO WALMART TO STEAL...COPS DO THEIR JOB AND THATS THAT---QUIT THE LIBERAL IDIOTIC WHINING
386 days ago
Dada
Is it safe to go to Walmart? Know that a customer at Walmart is in a high crime area and as such may become a victim of crime. Beware. 
435 days ago
Robert
The typical biased anti-corporation story about a company that contributes millions in tax revenues and jobs without using services like schools.  Always safe to pick a corporation and paint it black isn't it Mr. newspaper editor? No matter that police run their own operations, can prioritize and respond to calls as they deem appropriate, and were staffed to handle the calls they responded to in part with the taxes paid by WalMart.  No analysis of whether WalMart's focus on providing goods that the poor can afford while other retailers ignore them, contributes to clientele that are more likely  to have a higher incentive to shoplift? Ultimately, people and police are accountable for their own actions - stop trying to let people off the hook for their own behavior and scouring the landscape for a corporation to blame.  That's the objective truth.. 
288 days ago
Jennifer Jones
They also put millions of small businesses out of business in taking over the country.  Try and find a small independent hardware store and various other kinds of stores.  Now, things change as times change but Walmart is a bad company that pays low wages, wants its employees to have to find their own health insurance and pretty much sells crap made from China.  So, let them hire their own damned security.  I shouldn't have to pay for it and the police should not have to be living at the local Walmart to prevent trouble.

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Investigation and Detention of Shoplifters Policy










The above information is also posted at:

http://img.ksl.com/slc/2489/248982/24898223.pdf

and here is a slight diversion if you have time for a blurb about bold face thefts from Wally World:

https://consumerist.com/2017/08/07/two-men-simply-walk-out-of-walmart-after-scooping-up-5-tvs/

-----------------------------------------------

  Wal-Mart employees literally killed a shoplifter
Shutterstock

Our story involves a man in a Florida Wal-Mart in September 2016. How is this combination going to end well? It was about 3 a.m. when a man entered Wal-Mart and slowly filled his cart up with a little less than $400 worth of movies. Now, no matter what had happened next, we would have found this suspicious. Obviously digital is the way of the future.

Anyway, the man walked around a bit — presumably humming to himself and maybe glancing side to side — before dashing for the exit. Maybe he imagined he was the Flash, maybe he had a severe mental illness, maybe he was just very not very intelligent.

Regardless, he didn't make it very far. Three employees grabbed the man and pinned him to the ground. At this point we'd say something like, "Book him, Sarge," or "Oh my god, we're heroes," or "Wait, wait, why is he screaming?" Because he was screaming that he couldn't breathe. But these three fearless Wal-Mart employees didn't move, and the man never moved again. Yeah, the employees killed him. 

The employees were charged with manslaughter because the world is not always totally awful; but because it mostly is their jobs merely became "under review." So remember that the next time you think of shoplifting in a Wal-Mart.

If the employees kill you, Wal-Mart will just give them a slap on the wrist. Which, to be honest, is much nicer than we ever thought Wal-Mart could be to its employees.

Read More: http://www.grunge.com/26656/shady-secrets-wal-mart-doesnt-want-know/s/wal-mart-employees-literally-killed-a-shoplifter/?utm_campaign=clip

Wal-Mart employee kills, again
Shutterstock

If there's one good thing you're supposed to say when you leave Wal-Mart, it's "Hey, at least I didn't die!" but even that is something Wal-Mart seems determined to take away. (That's a little harsh.) 

What happened is an employee was chilling in his car (again, around 3 a.m.) when a man came up and supposedly started threatening him. The employee pulled out his gun and shot him to death because what else was he going to do? Drive away? 

Our main question is, was the employee planning on bringing the gun into the store? If we get in a cashier's face, are we going to get a face full of lead? Oh, and the Wal-Mart this happened in? Of course it was in Florida

All right, listen, if you're in Florida, do not go to Wal-Mart at 3 a.m., especially not to rob someone. Just don't.


Read More: http://www.grunge.com/26656/shady-secrets-wal-mart-doesnt-want-know/s/wal-mart-employee-kills-again/?utm_campaign=clip

Wal-Mart has security camera issues
Shutterstock

In 2015, a woman named Lisa Kennedy was using a handicapped dressing room at a Wal-Mart located in Michigan when she noticed a security camera in the reflection of the mirror. It wasn't located directly inside the dressing room, but it was a ceiling camera just outside the door. 

The camera was positioned such that it had a clear overhead view into the dressing room, making Kennedy uncomfortable enough to snap a photo and post it on her Facebook page. She even brought her husband back the following day to confirm her beliefs, and after spotting the security camera himself, he approached several managers and other Wal-Mart employees regarding the situation, including both the store manager and assistant manager. The only response they received was that Wal-Mart's corporate office decides where the security cameras go, and that there was no way the dressing room could be visible. Wal-Mart later claimed that the camera was never functional and was simply there to deter shoplifters.

A separate Wal-Mart location in Pennsylvania had even worse issues with a security camera that was discovered in a bathroom. 

Reported by the Huffington Post, several Wal-Mart employees discovered a hidden camera in a unisex bathroom, used by both customers and store workers. The camera was installed crudely on a shelf, hidden behind a cardboard box with a peep hole drilled through it. You might be thinking that some pervert installed the camera so they could make some extra cash by uploading the videos online, but in reality the store managers installed it. When confronted, the store managers denied the accusations. However, having photographic evidence allowed these employees to not only sue Wal-Mart but four of their managers as well. 

Their reason behind installing the cameras in the first place was to prevent theft, once again proving that Wal-Mart managers will do a lot to make sure store loss isn't taken out of their paycheck.

Read More: http://www.grunge.com/26656/shady-secrets-wal-mart-doesnt-want-know/s/wal-mart-has-security-camera-issues/?utm_campaign=clip