The Bunker Blog

In a few short hours, we’ll all be out in our stores, dealing with the (hopefully) huge crowds, and doing our best to promote sales while protecting our stores from shrink. There’s no doubt it is the busiest day of the year for retailers, and for loss prevention professionals, it creates some very unique challenges.

That being said, I just wanted to say that I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I hope your bellies are full, and that you have rested up for tomorrow/tonight. I’m off to bed soon myself, as 3am comes early for me. Good luck tomorrow, and may your sales be high, and your losses low.

If, after we get through tomorrow, you have any interesting “Black Friday” stories that you would like to share, please send them to me. I plan to post an article of the most interesting ones I get. Whether your work in retail, or you are a customer who has an interesting experience tomorrow, I want to hear about it. Just click on the “Contact Me” button at the top of the main page. Send me your story, and be sure to let me know if you want your name/company mentioned in the article. Or, if you prefer, just leave it as a comment on this post.

Good Hunting…

Joe

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Talk about advertising your trade. According to NY Daily News, 5 convicted shoplifters will have their faces featured on electronic billboards every 6 minutes at the Staten Island Mall. The District Attorney’s office created the pogram to help deter the rising rate of shoplifting, and to warn would-be shoplifters what would happen if they are caught and convicted.

Now, if these shoplifters show their faces at the mall, they will likely be recongnized, and hopefully, reported to the mall security office and police. I like it. I say every mall should join in, and every retailer should be permitted to post pictures of convicted shoplifters up in their stores, too.

Although not as extreme as the cases in Anderson, South Carolina, where a local judge has ordered convicted shoplifters to stand outside the establishments where they shoplifted holding a sign; this program, hopefully, will also be a pretty good deterrent.

What do you think? Will this program make a positive impact on the shoplifting situation at this mall? Anybody want to venture a prediction?

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There are two more stories in today’s news that involve idiot parents who made the choice to take their kids shoplifting. In both cases, when the parents were approached by store loss prevention, they fled and left their kids behind. And, in both cases, the kids were placed in extreme danger.

In the first case, Gerardo Rodriguez, 24, and Yanira Camargo, 22, were allegedly shoplifting at Kohl’s in Fillmore, CA, with their 4 year old daughter in the shopping cart. When they attempted to exit, they were approached by store loss prevention agents. At this point, they both ran away, leaving their daughter in the cart in the parking lot. According to police, the little girl was then almost hit by a car traveling through the parking lot. The two cowards got away, for the moment. The little girl was placed with a guardian by police.

Then, there is the case in Brockton, MA, where Jose Capeda-Irizarry and Leyda Meried Lopez stole two televisions from the local Walmart by placing them into their infant’s stroller. When they were approached by loss prevention, Irizarry ran off with the stroller, baby still inside. He ran through traffic, but then abandoned the stroller and baby to save his own skin.

Both sets of so-called parents left behind their own kids in order to avoid being charged for shoplifting. Both of the children in these cases could have been injured or killed because their parents chose to leave them behind so they could escape after stealing from a retailer. Can anybody say, “Wreckless endangerment”?

Want to weigh in? Leave a comment below…

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The news was released today that an employee of Ritta Elementary School, along with her 17 year old daughter, was also arrested in connection with the police investigation that led to the arrests of 33 people in the Knoxville, TN area on Saturday. Bobbie Lou Pickering, who is a bookkeeper for the elementary school, has been placed on leave pending the outcome of her case. The school board also plans an audit of the school’s books in light of the allegations.

The 8 football players who were arrested as part of the investigation were prohibited from playing in the playoff game by school board Superintendent Dr. Jim McIntyre as a result of their arrests.

I am still not 100% clear about this, but it appears that this was a ring of shoplifters, working together in seperate locations. Pickering either took her daughter along on the shoplifting excursion, or was it the other way around? I don’t know. Either way, if the charges are true, Pickering is one of those low-life, so-called parents who go shoplifting with their kids. It doesn’t matter that the daughter is 17. She is still Bobbie Lou Pickering’s responsibility.

So, the football players are out of the game. Good. Pickering was charged with shoplifting and contributing to the delinquency of a child. Good. Another student, from Gibbs High School, was also charged during the investigation, and has been suspended for a week from all extra curricular activities at the school.

More to come as this store continues to develop. Want to talk about this? Leave a comment below.

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No names have been released yet, but according to news reports, a loss prevention agent for the Macy’s in the Dayton Mall in Dayton, OH, was arrested for intentionally looking away while 4 shoplifters carried off $10,000.00 in merchandise!

One of the alleged shoplifters was the sister of the loss prevention agent. The 24 year old LP agent had been working for Macy’s since February, and his manager suspected something was going on, so a surveillance was conducted on the LP agent by the manager.

The 5 suspects arrested on Tuesday are expected to be charged with felonies in connection with the thefts. Police also suspect that this was not the first time the group stole merchandise from the store. It is unclear what the group intended to do with the stolen merchandise at this time.

How about this? Is this a sign of the economic times, too? In an unrelated case in Raceland, KY recently, an off-duty police officer was arrested and charged with shoplifting. He later resigned from the police department.

This begs the question, “Who can we trust?” I would respond by quoting my boss, “In God we trust, everybody else, we interview”.

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