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Walmart: The No. 1 destination for Phoenix police

Megan Cassidy
The Republic | azcentral.com
The Walmart at 35th Avenue and Bethany Home Road has generated the most police dispatches in Phoenix since 2015.

It wasn’t yet 7:30 a.m. on May 27 when Phoenix police received their first call of the day to the Walmart at 35th Avenue and Bethany Home Road.

A man with a backpack had browsed through the bike section and picked out some glue, cleaner and a bike inner tube before slipping out front door without paying. He fled on his bicycle.

The second call came at 8:50 a.m.  A woman believed someone had stolen her daughter’s cellphone.

A few hours later, a man walked out the door with $102 worth of merchandise, $79 of it meat, police said.

Before the store closed at midnight, the Phoenix Police Department had received 10 calls to the address, nine of which resulted in a responding officer.

The double-digit number of calls that day was especially high, but symbolized a trend that has frustrated beat cops and troubled community activists. In Phoenix and throughout the country, Walmarts have become known for high crime as well as low prices.

The city's top spot for police calls

Between 2011 and mid-2016, three of the top five addresses to which Phoenix police officers responded were Walmart stores, according to records obtained by The Arizona Republic.

The Walmart at Christown Spectrum Mall, at 17th Avenue and Bethany Home Road, averaged more police dispatches than any other address in the city during that 5 1/2-year span.

That distinction has recently shifted to the Walmart at 35th Avenue and Bethany Home, which has generated the most dispatches since 2015. This Walmart received the third-most calls in the city during the  5½-year span.

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The Walmart at 19th Avenue and Bell Road received the fourth-most calls in the city. Nos. 2 and 5 on the list were large apartment complexes.

TheRepublic analyzed more than five years of police calls at 11 Phoenix Walmarts. From 2011 through July 2016, officers responded to the stores 29,881 times, for reports ranging from trespassing to shoplifting to homicide. (Vehicle-related calls on the property, such as accidents, drunken drivers and tow requests, were excluded. Calls for Walmarts that shared addresses with other stores also were excluded.)

Reports across the country found similar results. A Tampa Bay Times investigation found law enforcement in four counties logged 16,800 calls to Walmarts in one year alone.

Changes are coming, Walmart says

Walmart officials, presented with similar data in cities across the country, say their stores are in the midst of sweeping changes aimed at cracking down on crime and enhancing the shopping experience. They're renovating stores, implementing new security policies and introducing a new diversion program for certain low-level offenders, company officials said.

Delia Garcia, a Walmart spokeswoman based in Phoenix, said the retailer in the past few years has ramped up its efforts to cut down on police-call volume, with promising initial results.

"In the coming weeks and months we’re going to continue to work with on the issue of shoplifting," she said. "Not just shoplifting apprehension but shoplifting deterrents."

Garcia said reducing calls to police was one upshot of a broader company-wide effort to enhance the store's customer experience. In 2015, the retail giant announced it was investing $2.7 billion over the next two years in more training, education and higher wages for its employees.

"All of that is part of the bigger picture; improving the customer experience, and has also served as a deterrent to potential shoplifters," she said.

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The retailer has been criticized by police and citizens for chewing up time officers could otherwise be spending patrolling neighborhoods. Critics say the chain employs a culture of apprehension rather than loss prevention and too often relies on the tax-paid services of officers.

But Walmart is a taxpayer as well, with its sales-tax revenues a windfall for many communities. Its stores, others argue, are certainly deserving of police protection.

"The bigger point... is to ask the question, 'What is the relative responsibility of the corporation and merchant, and the local police in dealing with the crime problem?'" said Michael Scott, a clinical professor at Arizona State University's School of Criminology & Criminal Justice and director of the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing.

"And the general census across the country is that, at least with regards to Walmart, their standard approach was to put a great deal of responsibility on the local police department and accept little responsibility themselves."

No. 1 call: Shoplifting

Arizona Walmarts garnered headlines this month as the site of two violent crimes. On Dec. 3, a disgruntled employee was accused of bringing a rifle, a knife and a torch to a Prescott Walmart in an attempt to kill her co-workers and burn the building down. Two men were shot inside a Glendale store Dec. 7, causing a rush of customers to abandon their merchandise and flee out side exits.

Most of the retailer's police activity is more prosaic.

At the 11 Phoenix stores, officers responded to at least 13,823 reports of shoplifting or shoplifting attempts during The Republic’s analysis period, meaning a shopper left the building without paying for merchandise even while being tracked by the store's loss-prevention specialists.

Shoplifting accounted for 46 percent of the total calls.

In The Republic’s analysis of the top addresses for police service, no other retailer came close to the number of Walmart calls, even those in the same geographic footprint.

The Christown Spectrum Mall area has many large retailers, including Walmart, JCPenney and Target. In The Republic’s analysis period, police showed up at the Walmart 6,000 times, Target 2,435, and JCPenney 1,600.

Inside the numbers 

It's impossible to tie Walmart's crime volume to any one catalyst, loss-prevention experts say.

Its mega stores often are among the biggest of the big boxes, with the number of daily customers rivaling the populations of small towns.

The retailer, the world's largest in sales, has a giant footprint in the industry. According to their respective websites, there are more than 5,000 Walmart stores and Sam's Clubs nationwide, compared with more than 1,790 Target stores in the U.S.

Walmart stores are scattered throughout the city, with several in lower-income areas.

The merchandise itself also can draw a criminal element, said Read Hayes, a research scientist at the University of Florida and director of the Loss Prevention Research Council, a retailer-supplier coalition. Items such as beauty products, razors and small electronics are easy to conceal, desirable for personal use and also do well on the black market.

"They’re sort of the perfect storm," Hayes said of the retailer. "They have the good stuff, they’re everywhere, and they’re located in higher-risk areas very often."

A good neighbor — or not?

Walmart always has been a flash point for people living near current or proposed stores, often over concerns about traffic and crime.

Frank Steinmetz, a community activist with a Phoenix block watch, said he's concerned about the Walmart planned for the Metrocenter and has voiced his opinion to the City Council.

"We have seen personally a number of instances where there’s been thefts taking place," he said. Steinmetz recalled an instance in which he witnessed an employee accept a return on some CDs that appeared to have been stolen.

"He said 'I don’t have a receipt,' and she said, 'That’s OK,' and she refunded him the money," Steinmetz said.

Mobile users click here to see an interactive map of police calls from Phoenix Walmarts.

Steinmetz said concern about a criminal element is the main reason he doesn't shop there anymore.

"Why are the police called there more often? It means that there’s some type of activity going on at Walmart that requires a police officer," he said.  "That means that there’s a law violation, something illegal going on. The police don’t go there to visit. I don’t feel safe going to a Walmart."

Memo: Beat cops can get frustrated

In a internal memo written about the Christown Spectrum Walmart in 2013, an officer on the beat wrote to his sergeant about the abundance of calls to the store.The memo was provided to TheRepublic by the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, the city's rank-and-file union. The names of the sergeant and officer were removed, but the document offers a glimpse of his frustration with the store.

“It seems there are at least two to three calls per shift for shoplifters,” the officer said. “I have personally responded to as many as six calls a shift to pick up shoplifters.”

The memo's author said the service to Walmart was so much of a strain that officers from adjacent coverage areas often were forced to help out with their calls.

Loss-prevention employees at Walmart seemed to focus more on arrests than preventing the crime, the officer wrote. They often would watch a crime unfold on video surveillance. Rather than deploying a security officer to thwart it, the loss prevention officers would allow it to transpire, "make the collar" and summon police, the police officer wrote.

Garcia, the Walmart spokeswoman, was asked about the memo. She responded that the retailer was working on ways to prevent losses as well as the apprehension of those suspected of crime.

The store also served as an ad hoc research site for Ben Harris, a Phoenix police community action officer who for a time worked on a beat including Christown Spectrum.

In a meeting with TheRepublic, Harris explained that he came up with various suggestions to try to cut down on the Walmart’s calls. He studied the security measures of both Walmart and and other large retailers, as well as the stores’ spatial layout and design features.

Harris found other stores' staff and security were more proactive and visible than those at Walmart. While a paying customer views the presence of employees helpful, a would-be shoplifter sees an impediment, Harris said.

Walmart’s set-up was a boon for criminals as well, Harris said. The shelves were packed close together, often more than 8 feet tall, and stuffed with as much as three times more product than other area stores, he said.

Harris said he wanted the store to move valuable merchandise to areas more difficult to reach, to alter the store's layout and to have employees contact customers more often. He said he brought his suggestions to the local neighborhood watch groups, who began working with Walmart management.

Calls fall at Christown Spectrum 

Garcia said she couldn't comment on the specific changes at the Christown Spectrum store in recent years.

In general, she said, "It goes to improving the customer experience, making some adjustments in the floor layouts ... investing in those strategies when we’re looking at the overall operations of the store."

The changes seem to have made an impact. In a span of two years, dispatched calls to the Christown Walmart dropped by nearly 30 percent, to 917 service visits in 2015 from 1,299 in 2013.

Garcia said the store completed a multimillion-dollar remodel earlier this year.

AJ Marsden, a community leader in the area, was part of the neighborhood group that met with Walmart management. Marsden said his group's meetings coincided with a movement toward security that had been percolating in Walmarts around the country.

Marsden highlighted the major and minor changes on a visit to the store earlier this year. She said she was pleased with the results.

She pointed out security guards who passed by, stoppers on racks in the electronics section, and the cashier who requires cosmetics customers to pay before moving onto the rest of the store.

"Things that I used to see in the past that I don’t as much anymore, is open food wrappers," she said, walking by the grocery section. "So either the associates are cleaning them up, or it’s not happening.”

Calls spike at 35th Avenue store

Walmart at 35th Ave and Bethany Home Road on Dec. 8, 2016 in Phoenix, Ariz.

Calls to the Walmart at 35th Avenue and Bethany Home shifted in the opposite direction. Police service calls spiked to 1,114 in 2015, up from a recent low of 645 in 2014.

This year is on track to follow 2015, with 672 calls for service reported from January through July.

Garcia declined to comment on specifics of individual stores' calls for service. She stressed that while each store was affected by an individual set of circumstances, the policies to deter and apprehend crime within the stores was company-wide.

"There may be external factors that affect that (police call volume)," she said, adding that, for example, shoplifting reports may be rising throughout an area. "That's why having a good working relationship with law enforcement and other retailers ... having that dialogue is important."

Countless factors that can spur a shift in direction, said Hayes of the Loss Prevention Research Council. They could include management policies, law-enforcement priorities or environmental factors outside the store, he said.

'They're letting us use stores as laboratories'

Hayes said Walmart has made significant efforts in the past two years or so to thwart crime in its stores. Walmart is one of 40 chain retailers who are involved with the Loss Prevention Research Council, he said, which uses evidence-based practices to help deter both violent and property crime in businesses.

"Walmart is fully on board," he said. "They're letting us use stores as laboratories."

Hayes said the work favors store-specific solutions over broad strokes. Rather than adding security guards or off-duty officers, stores should figure out what they want them to do, how they should be trained. Rather than simply adding more security cameras, decide whether they should act as simply the eyes for security or as a deterrent.

"We're working with the retailers to be a little more precise," he said. "Not to have paralysis by analysis."

New focus on crime prevention, diversion

Garcia, the Walmart spokeswoman, said crime deterrents at Walmart stores are part of an ever-evolving process, and that store leaders customize their approach based on their circumstances.

She said couldn't delve into the specifics of any one policy or any specific store — it could hand criminals their playbook, Garcia said. But she could discuss some of the concepts that were developing in Phoenix and across the country.

Some stores have rolled out a "more at the door" program, which returned greeters to the entrance and employed "consumer hosts" in yellow vests to check receipts at entrances, oversee the self-checkout section and give advice. Garcia said the store has created about 9,000 of these positions nationwide.

Garcia said the retailer also is stationing more employees on the floor, as well, and is implementing a system that would make it more difficult to return a stolen item.

Perhaps the program with the most potential to stem police calls is a new, diversion-like program called "restorative justice." The program acts as a first strike for some shoplifters and allows the suspect to avoid prosecution in exchange for a fee and the completion of an online course. Moreover, the program is completely self-contained. There are no calls to police.

"It’s designed to specifically reduce the calls to stores, and to give low-risk, first-time offenders a second chance," Garcia said. The program has been introduced to about one-third of Walmarts throughout the country, she said, and is credited for reducing calls to police by about 35 percent, she said.   

Pushing crime elsewhere? 

Dave Lake, a Phoenix police sergeant with the department's business-economics stability team, said he appreciates Walmart's efforts to improve its customers' experiences but takes a different view of all the police calls.

Walmart, as a crime victim, should report its losses. Its calls are appropriate and often have served as a bellwether for his profession, he said.

"The myth is, they’re a problem," he said. "They’re a victim, and we need to remember that."

Lake said that retailers should call police when they've been victimized and that not doing so can have a ripple effect on the rest of the economy. Some retailers, he said, won't call police for less than a $50 loss. But that $50 loss is not fully absorbed by the store, he said, and can shift the burden onto taxpayers in different ways.

For example, he said, of the $50 in goods stolen, citizens are losing out on $4 of sales tax if the item is then resold. And the retailer can claim about $15 in loss write-ups on its tax return.

Lake said critics of retailers calling police fail to see the big picture.

"So you’re allowing shoplifting to go unchecked? You’re going to complain about them to the point that they would rather let the guy walk out the door?" he said.

Lake's job is to track the movement of what's known as the "shadow economy," the trafficking of stolen or counterfeit goods through the marketplace.

He isn't completely sold on crime-prevention techniques employed by Walmart and other stores. Lake reasoned that many of the shoplifters are drug addicts who are stealing to resell and fund their fix. If if they aren't able to steal at Walmart, Lake said, they'll go somewhere else where they can.

"I don’t mind them reducing crime at their store, but we as law enforcement have to accept that they’re driving it elsewhere," he said. "Walmart had the ability to capture them, and we could then investigate, interview, determine serial offenders, identify the most prolific guys — it was a great thing for investigators."

Lake said Walmart has been a bellwether for his profession. He could spot, for instance, if people had begun stealing perfume; then figure out why, where it's going, who's buying it and who's selling it. The lead from a store like Walmart could help him remove a criminal element out of the system, he said.

Lake acknowledged that his enthusiasm for call volume wasn't shared by patrol officers.

"Regular detectives are just losing their minds because they're just rubber-stamping these things," he said. "But when you're actually hunting criminals, from my world, it's a good thing."  

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