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workinclasszero

(28,270 posts)
Thu Aug 25, 2016, 08:20 AM Aug 2016

Walmart’s Out-of-Control Crime Problem Is Driving Police Crazy

Walmart’s Out-of-Control Crime Problem Is Driving Police Crazy
The retailer’s aggressive cost cutting has unintended consequences.
By Shannon Pettypiece and David Voreacos | August 17, 2016

It’s not unusual for the department to send a van to transport all the criminals Ross arrests at this Walmart. The call log on the store stretches 126 pages, documenting more than 5,000 trips over the past five years. Last year police were called to the store and three other Tulsa Walmarts just under 2,000 times.

By comparison, they were called to the city’s four Target stores about 300 times. Most of the calls to the northeast Supercenter were for shoplifting, but there’s no shortage of more serious crimes, including five armed robberies so far this year, a murder suspect who killed himself with a gunshot to the head in the parking lot last year, and, in 2014, a group of men who got into a parking lot shootout that killed one and seriously injured two others.

More than 200 violent crimes, including attempted kidnappings and multiple stabbings, shootings, and murders, have occurred at the nation’s 4,500 Walmarts this year, or about one a day, according to an analysis of media reports.

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-walmart-crime/
8 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Walmart’s Out-of-Control Crime Problem Is Driving Police Crazy (Original Post) workinclasszero Aug 2016 OP
Masters of cost externalization. Thanks, wcz. nt. Mc Mike Aug 2016 #1
Yup they let the taxpayers pick up the tab workinclasszero Aug 2016 #3
Training new employees how to get public assistance, because their pay is below poverty level. Mc Mike Aug 2016 #4
Here's a great explanation for Walmart's lack of security PJMcK Aug 2016 #2
Thanks for the link workinclasszero Aug 2016 #5
Meth lab at Walmart? JonathanRackham Aug 2016 #6
As I posted in the other thread about it it isn't really causing crime Lee-Lee Aug 2016 #7
No, the police are not crazy, they are in on the scam. hunter Aug 2016 #8
 

workinclasszero

(28,270 posts)
3. Yup they let the taxpayers pick up the tab
Thu Aug 25, 2016, 08:55 AM
Aug 2016

for the consequences of their disastrous management policies.

Mc Mike

(9,107 posts)
4. Training new employees how to get public assistance, because their pay is below poverty level.
Thu Aug 25, 2016, 08:57 AM
Aug 2016

They're leeches.

PJMcK

(21,921 posts)
2. Here's a great explanation for Walmart's lack of security
Thu Aug 25, 2016, 08:49 AM
Aug 2016

The Young Turks explain what's going on at Walmarts:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017397870

Despicable corporation.

 

workinclasszero

(28,270 posts)
5. Thanks for the link
Thu Aug 25, 2016, 09:04 AM
Aug 2016

The bastards force the taxpayers to pay for their lack of security and laugh all the way to the bank!

This whole country is being scammed by predator companies like Walmart and Mylan!

 

Lee-Lee

(6,324 posts)
7. As I posted in the other thread about it it isn't really causing crime
Thu Aug 25, 2016, 09:33 AM
Aug 2016

It's just drawing the bad actors to one spot. People don't live law abiding lives and just choose to be criminals when they get to the Wal-Mart parking lot.

It's just that Wal-Mart is the place where these folks would shop anyway, so when you attract your lower income portion of the population to a shop that is where most of your criminal actors are, so that is where they are.

I saw it first hand when Wal-Mart came to a town in my county as a deputy. There were no new criminals, but the same faces we saw at the next closest Wal-Marts and K-Marts just were there now.

The new Wal-Mart was just outside the city limits when it opened, and that meant my department got all the calls. Within a year the city annexed it and their PD got all the calls. The city had done the math and said the call volume there accounted for about .75 officers shift time per week, and the tax base it added would let them hire 2 full time officers plus have about $80,000 more for the budget so they saw it as a win even with the increased workload.

Thier no questions asked, super liberal return policy can and does encourage scammers to try and take advantage of it, but that's just what some people do.

I will say that some of thier loss prevention people were really bad at it, while some were great. Shoplifters almost always have specific behavior cues you can spot to figure out who they are.

hunter

(38,264 posts)
8. No, the police are not crazy, they are in on the scam.
Thu Aug 25, 2016, 10:28 AM
Aug 2016

It's a make-work program for the local police and courts of boring backward U.S.A., and another racist way of taxing and harassing people living in poverty. Ferguson Missouri would be an example of that.

If the police ignore ordinary shoplifting calls for a random number of hours, let's say one, two, three, four hours or longer, then WalMart gets tired of babysitting shoplifters they've caught and becomes a little more proactive in their loss prevention activities.

I live in a place where the police are understaffed and don't show up reliably unless someone is bleeding or on fire. Car accident with no injuries? Great, they'll tell you to make a report on their website or in person at the police station. It's the same if someone throws a rock through your window, steals your lawnmower from a garden shed, etc.. Making a report at the police station is a trip, the clerks work behind bullet proof glass, and everyone sits on benches waiting their turn, like the "Group W" bench of Alice's Restaurant.

The only time I see police cars parked in front of our local WalMart is when there's been some sort of violence or somebody has threatened somebody else with a gun.



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