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Friday, August 19, 2016

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

Darrell Ross—"Officer Walmart" to his colleagues in the Tulsa Police Department—operates for up to 10 hours a day out of the security office of a Walmart Supercenter in the city’s northeast corner. It’s a small, windowless space with six flatscreen monitors mounted on a pale blue cinder-block wall, and on this hot summer day, the room is packed. Four Walmart employees watch the monitors, which toggle among the dozens of cameras covering the store and parking lot, while doing paperwork and snacking on Cheez Whiz and Club Crackers. In a corner of the room, an off-duty sheriff’s officer, hired by Walmart, makes small talk with the employees.

As soon as Ross walks in the door, around 2 p.m., he’s presented with an 18-year-old who tried to leave the store with a microwave oven. Ross focuses his gaze and talks in a low voice to the young man, who just graduated from high school and plans to go into the military. He also attempts to calm the boy’s mother, who rushed to the store and is worried that her son won’t be able to enlist if he gets a criminal record. “You need to start taking responsibility for your actions,” Ross tells the teenager. “You’re a man now.” He tells the mother that because it was the boy’s first offense, he won’t be arrested—but if he messes up twice more, he’ll be charged with a felony. Ross slips a pair of reading glasses out of his bulletproof vest and writes the young man a summons to appear in court.

Police reports from dozens of stores suggest the number of petty crimes committed on Walmart properties nationwide this year will be in the hundreds of thousands. But people dashing out the door with merchandise is the least troubling part of Walmart’s crime problem. 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.

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6 comments:

  1. Sounds like fruitland walmart. Fruitland police have officer posted up daily arresting shoplifters

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  2. 6am shopping is priority 1 during the weekdays. A big HELL NO on weekends!

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  3. All of this crime is because of the racial makeup of it's shoppers. You don't hear of this stuff going on at a Harris Teeter's.

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  4. 10:33 AM - You obviously don't look at the pictures of the shoplifters on this site.

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  5. I look at the shoplifters, and the article said that was not as big a problem as the robberies and murders. Those are who 10:33 is talking about.

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