Fighting the Theft Wave with Facial Recognition Tech
Retailers Turn to Facial Recognition to Fight Retail Crime
2021 was a bad year for retail theft. According to a survey conducted by the NRF, a whopping 70 percent of retailers reported experiencing an increase in crime over the last year. Just last month, the federal government charged 29 people with stealing over $29 million in merchandise from Walmart, Costco, CVS, and GNC. The thieves then took to online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay to resell the stolen goods.

According to Retail Industry Leaders Association and the Buy Safe America Coalition, as much as $69 billion, or 1.5 percent of total retail sales, were lost to theft in the past year. While many may recall reports of smash and grab looting in major cities such as San Francisco, New York, and Minneapolis, thefts are not entirely targeted at point-of-sale operations. Thieves are also going after products in transit. In January, a truck leaving a UPS delivery hub in Atlanta was robbed at gunpoint. The transit robberies have also extended to trainyards where just last month in Los Angeles thieves raided a series of cargo containers carrying merchandise from Amazon and REI.

To combat the coordinated thefts, some large retailers such as Macy’s and Bloomingdales are quietly turning to facial recognition technologies to help them catch repeated offenders. Most retailers already utilize a plethora of security cameras throughout their stores to act as a deterrent against any potential thieves. Turning to facial recognition technology simply combines this already existing infrastructure with the power of artificial intelligence.

Facial recognition provider FaceFirst says its technology is already used by about 25 percent of America’s largest retailers. The company runs a whopping 12 trillion face comparisons a day for its customers. However, most retailers that utilize facial recognition technology keep it close to the chest due to customer concerns surrounding the intrinsic big-brother nature of the technology. Face recognition technologies also make mistakes that have problematic results around gender and race. For example, some software has up to a 35 percent error rate when scanning darker-skinned women when compared to a one percent error rate in lighter-skinned men, according to a study conducted by Timnit Gebru from Microsoft and Joy Buolamwini from MIT. dealerscope.com

Manhattan DA Creates Retail Crime Alliance
Spike in NYC high-profile robberies, shoplifting prompts DA Bragg to meet with small businesses

Alliance was formed ineffort 'to reduce shoplifting and commercial robberies'

New York City's Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has created a small business alliance in an attempt to tackle shoplifting and business thefts amid a spate of high-profile, caught-on-camera robberies and criticism over his policies.

Bragg was expected to meet with leadership from Partnership for New York City this week, as previously reported by FOX Business, just days after the district attorney’s office announced the launch of the Manhattan Small Business Alliance.

The alliance was formed in an effort "to reduce shoplifting and commercial robberies in partnership with small business leaders in every neighborhood of Manhattan," Bragg’s office said in a press release last week.

The announcement comes as organized retail theft and business robberies have made headlines across the country, including in Manhattan. The New York Police Department's citywide statistics show petit larceny – or the theft of property valued up to $1,000 – has increased by 14.5%, or from 4,948 to 5,663, year to date in 2022 compared to 2021.

Meanwhile, FOX Business’ Charles Gasparino reported that the Partnership for New York City’s meeting with Bragg would pertain to protecting retail workers in New York City as the DA begins to feel the pressure from the business community.

Bragg came under fire earlier this year after he released a controversial memo titled "Re: Achieving Fairness and Safety." The memo called for Manhattan prosecutors to look for alternatives to prison sentences for criminals convicted of several kinds of offenses and "reduce pretrial incarceration," unless for "very serious cases." foxnews.com

Rite Aid Pushes Back on NYC Crime Closures
Rite Aid denies claims that NYC store closures leading to job loss amid high-profile NYC robberies
A spate of high-profile robberies at New York City Rite Aid locations has highlighted store closures in the area, but the pharmacy and retail giant is pushing back against the notion that its workers are being left without jobs – or that its shops are shuttering only as a result of organized retail theft.

Videos and local reports that have circulated in recent days highlighted brazen shoplifting in at least two Rite Aid stores in Manhattan – in the Hell’s Kitchen and Upper East Side neighborhoods. Both stores are scheduled to close in early-to-mid February, a Rite Aid spokesperson confirmed to FOX Business.

The spokesperson told FOX Business on Monday that the stores are closing "for a number of reasons" based on months-long reviews that are carried out "across the full footprint of 2,500 stores." Sixty-three stores nationwide, roughly 2% of the total number of Rite Aid locations, will be closing as a result of this months-long review, which the company announced in December, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said the decisions "are never for one reason, but a variety of factors that retail businesses much consider, such as overarching business strategy, lease and rent considerations, store performance, and much more."

The Rite Aid spokesperson told FOX Business that the Hell’s Kitchen store will close permanently on Feb. 8, while the Upper East Side location will shutter on Feb. 15. But reports that the store employees are being left without other job options are wrong, the spokesperson said. foxbusiness.com

Retail Crime Free-for-All in San Francisco
Helpless Walgreens security guard tries and fails to stop brazen shoplifter

The brazen theft is one of many throughout California, with many blaming progressive politicians for soft-on-crime policies

This is the shocking moment a Walgreens security guard in San Francisco confronted a shoplifter - taken back armfuls of stolen items out of his bags - only to let the thief walk out the door with bags still bulging.

It comes in the wake of huge spike in smash and grab robberies across the US, with LA County and New York City being especially hard hit due to the soft-on-crime policies of progressive District Attorneys George Gascón and Alvin Bragg.

In lawless California, the passage of Proposition 47 in 2014 downgraded charges of property theft of less than $950 in value from a felony to a misdemeanor.

Non-violent property crimes under $950 have been downgraded to misdemeanors, while two or more people conspiring to 'cheat and defraud any person or any property, by any means which are in themselves criminal' face no more than one year in county prison, a fine of $10,000 or a combination of the two.

Earlier this month, fed-up California assemblyman Rudy Salas, a Democrat, introduced a bill that would lower the amount a suspect can steal before facing a felony to $400, which was the original threshold before Proposition 47 passed.

'Enough is enough, we need to fight back against the criminals who are stealing from our communities,' Salas said in a statement introducing the bill. 'We have seen the unintended consequences of Prop 47’s weakening of our theft laws and I believe California voters are ready to make their voices heard on this issue again.'

The law will need to pass through the state legislature and receive a majority vote from California voters on a ballot measure before becoming law.  dailymail.co.uk

Retail & Rail Theft Surge Driving LA County DA Recall Election
LA councilman blasts train theft 'chaos,' calls them 'a threat to our economy'
Amid a surge in smash and grab retail thefts plaguing California, the train crisis caught Newsom's attention, who in late January visited tracks strewn with garbage. The governor promised statewide coordination as law enforcement and prosecutors pursue petty thieves and organized criminals who have been raiding cargo containers.

The thefts have exposed a rift between UP and local law enforcement. In a letter released last month, L.A. County DA George Gascon shifted blame on the company for doing "little to secure or lock trains," while insisting the number of cases involving the rail company fell last year. Meanwhile, according to LAPD Deputy Chief Al Labrada, “UP has significantly decreased law enforcement staffing.”

Gascon, a progressive former San Francisco top prosecutor who was came into office in 2020, insisted that it was “very telling that other major railroad operations in the area are not facing the same level of theft at their facilities as UP."

Yet the company defended itself, saying it has "brought in dozens of special agents from across our 23-state network into the Los Angeles area, starting last year. But these agents cannot totally supplant the expertise and investigative skills of the LAPD, especially when it comes to organized theft of cargo," a spokesperson from UP told Yahoo Finance in an email.

Gascon's progressive policies, however, have him facing a recall effort that was officially approved by the Los Angeles County Registrar on Thursday. The effort was spurred by some of his orders that included the elimination of sentence enhancement charges, zero-bail policies and not prosecuting juveniles as adults for many crimes. finance.yahoo.com

Florida ORC Bill Moves Forward
Organized retail theft bill earns unanimous approval at second committee stop

'We're taking this seriously and you will go to jail if you do it.'

The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Criminal and Civil Justice approved a bill Tuesday that seeks to crack down on the uptick in “boosters” and organized crime rings stealing from retail stores.

The bill (SB 1534), carried by Bradenton Republican Sen. Jim Boyd, would increase penalties for those who steal multiple items from multiple stores in a short period of time. The legislation was cleared in a unanimous vote and is now headed to its final committee.

Individuals or groups would be subject to third-degree felonies for, within 30 days, committing five or more retail thefts and stealing 10 or more items from at least two different locations. Those who steal 20 or more items would see that bumped up to a second-degree felony.

Businesses would have to tabulate the cost of the stolen items within those 30 days. The bill garnered bipartisan support. Sen. Victor Torres, a Kissimmee Democrat, and Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Miami Democrat, spoke in support of the legislation.

If approved, the increased penalties would take effect in October. floridapolitics.com

Portland becomes home of tent-city chop shops with 26-year high in car thefts

Table Mesa King Soopers in Boulder will reopen nearly a year after mass shooting

US: 76.5M Cases - 913.9K Dead - 46.6M Recovered
Worldwide: 382.7M Cases - 5.7M Dead - 303.4M Recovered

Former Senior Loss Prevention Executive
Know of any fallen LP exec? Let's remember & recognize.

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 344  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 627
*Red indicates change in total deaths

Omicron Cases Beginning to Fade
U.S. Covid fatalities reach highest level in a year as omicron cases subside
The daily death toll from Covid rose to an average of more than 2,400 fatalities over the previous seven days as of Monday, up 39% over the past two weeks and the highest level in about a year, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

“Any time we have deaths after the development of a vaccine — that largely takes off the table the possibility of death — is a tragedy,” Nuzzo said. “There’s no way around that this is a bad development for the pandemic.”

Some parts of the country are seeing encouraging signs, and cases and hospitalizations are easing nationwide. Hopkins data shows that U.S. cases surged to a pandemic high of close to 1 million new infections a day in mid-January. The country is now reporting a seven-day average of about 450,000 new cases per day, down 36% over the past two weeks. cnbc.com

TSA COVID Data Shows U.S. Cases Have Plateaued
TSA worker omicron data can help gauge pandemic’s severity
The TSA provides daily updates on the number of active COVID-19 cases among its screeners. The agency also provides a running case total, as well as the number of deaths. As of Jan. 21, there were 19,930 infections among TSA employees, with close to 92 percent of them airport screeners. This represents almost 40 percent of the TSA airport screening workforce.

The five airports with the most TSA screeners infected are Miami, New York’s John F. Kennedy, Newark, Los Angeles and O’Hare International Airport. In addition, 34 TSA employees have died from COVID-19.

The past month has been particularly brutal for the TSA. On Dec. 27, the TSA reported 1,147 TSA officers with active infections, or around 2 percent of its workforce. By Jan. 12, this number peaked at 3,783, or over 7.5 percent of its workforce. Recent data suggests that new infections have plateaued.

Given that these officers are testing frequently, their infection rate provides a window into what is likely occurring across the nation. As such, the TSA numbers may be providing useful insights into actual nationwide numbers. The 40 percent of the TSA screener workforce that has been infected would translate into over 130 million confirmed cases in the nation, around double the CDC’s official count. More recently, the 7.5 percent of active cases among screeners would translate into close to 25 million people across the nation being currently infected. bangordailynews.com  privateofficerbreakingnews.blogspot.com

Businesses Prep for a World Where COVID is Here to Stay
How Businesses in Texas and Florida Wrestle With States’ Vaccine Backlash

With the Biden administration’s attempt to impose a national standard blocked, companies must navigate a thicket of local rules as they try to return employees to the workplace.

Now that the Supreme Court has blocked the federal vaccine standard, which would have compelled large companies nationwide to mandate Covid-19 vaccines or weekly testing for a total of 80 million workers, businesses in Texas and Florida have been left to navigate complex local laws and muddled public health guidelines as they weigh how to protect their workers.

As the coronavirus increasingly makes clear that it is here to stay, businesses are feeling the pressure to reopen and re-establish some semblance of normalcy. That means figuring out what their safety precautions should look like, especially if their operations span states with drastically different pandemic rules.

The Walt Disney Company suspended its national vaccine mandate for Florida employees because of state regulations, even as it is working to keep the requirement in place for workers in its home state of California. A restaurant owner in Austin said he requested vaccines of his customers, but couldn’t check their proof of vaccination under state law. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has set up a crisis management team that meets twice weekly to evaluate Covid conditions and local laws in the 17 states where it operates, including Texas, and to assess the company’s ability to reopen offices and mandate vaccines or testing.

In Texas and Florida, state officials maintained they wanted to protect the freedoms of workers by limiting the types of safety protocols employers could put in place. Many employers, though, have found that the regulations can be a barrier to keeping their workers safe and businesses open. The Texas and Florida laws have forced national companies that operate in the states to carve out exceptions to corporate policies.

Florida requires businesses to allow for an extensive list of exemptions that workers can cite to avoid a vaccine mandate, effectively making workplace requirements moot. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order in October declaring that no employer could compel vaccination from someone who conscientiously objects to it. Some large national employers are maintaining their vaccine mandates in Texas and Florida by applying them only to people entering their offices.  nytimes.com

90K COVID-Driven Restaurant Closures
Restaurant recovery is hampered by higher costs, Covid surges as 2022 gets off to a ‘pretty sober start’

Some 90,000 restaurants have shuttered, some permanently, as a result of the pandemic, the association reported.

Rising labor and food costs are chipping away at the restaurant industry’s hard-won gains and delaying recovery, according to the findings of a new report.

As the world enters the third year of the ongoing pandemic, restaurant operators are continuing to adapt to doing business in the face of an onslaught of challenges from labor to inflation and Covid variants. While sales are rebounding, a report from the National Restaurant Association suggests it will be a year or more before conditions return to normal as tens of thousands of restaurants have shuttered — some permanently.

While the group’s data show more than half of all operators believe it will be at least a year for business to return to normal, most operators, from fine dining to quick service, said they expect sales will either maintain or grow this year, exhibiting cautious optimism.

While labor remains a top challenge, inflation is a close second, Riehle said. Food costs as a percentage of sales are up for 9 in 10 restaurant operators compared with pre-pandemic levels, and profits are down for 80% of operators compared with 2019. What’s more, 96% of operators experienced supply delays or shortages of key food or beverage items in 2021 — and these challenges will likely continue in 2022. cnbc.com

Business Vaccine Mandate Lawsuit
New Orleans mayor, health department sued over COVID vaccine mandates

Individuals 5 and older must show proof of at least two vaccine doses to enter certain businesses

More than 100 plaintiffs who live and work in the New Orleans area are suing Mayor LaToya Cantrell and the city's health department over its COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates.

The city last month announced that by Feb. 1, all individuals ages 5 and older would have to show proof of at least two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine or a negative PCR or antigen test to enter certain businesses, though a vaccine mandate went into effect for adults on Jan. 3. Additionally, all individuals 2 years old and older must wear masks indoors.

The complaint filed by Rodrigue & Arcuri and attorney Jimmy Faircloth of Faircloth, Melton, Sobel & Bash LLC, on behalf of more than 100 plaintiffs — and counting — accuses the mayor and the health department, including New Orleans Health Director Jennifer Avengno, of causing "social, economic and cultural harm" through ‘authoritarian actions under the pretext of an emergency without end."

"Simply put, the risk posed by Omicron to most people—especially children—is de minimis, far below the risks posed by many other diseases and activities of daily life," the lawsuit states. "For example, the risk to a New Orleans resident or visitor of injury in an automobile or of being the victim of violent crime…is greater than the risk of severe illness from the Omicron variant." foxnews.com

Starbucks says Omicron hit ingredients costs & staffing levels more than expected

Denmark becomes first EU country to lift all Covid-19 restrictions

Pfizer vaccine for kids under 5 could be available by end of February

Victim Impact Statements -
Follow-through is the key to success

More than 40% of Victim Impact Statements are never returned by retailers.

Do not lose your restitution opportunities!

It is fair to say that without an organized program for collecting and responding to Victim Impact Statements, most retailers are missing an opportunity to inform jurisdictions of their full loss. Retailers may not be awarded restitution from a loss suffered in their stores, warehouses and/or corporate locations if they do not respond to official requests. Without having a central location for jurisdictions to send Victim Impact Statements, they will most likely be sent to the location where the theft occurred; where they may sit unanswered or worse yet, be discarded. Victim Impact Statements are deadline driven and normally require research and follow through. Each year thousands become stale due to lack of response or are rejected as incomplete. While the basic information may be the same, each jurisdiction has its own set of rules and expectations for completion. Knowing the nuances required by each jurisdiction can make the difference to the restitution awarded.

The Zellman Group has a long-standing relationship with thousands of Courts and Department of Corrections across the country. This relationship ensures smooth communication between all parties. Our centralized process ensures every Victim Impact Statement arrives from the jurisdiction of offense to our firm. Zellman processes all Victim Impact Statements well within deadlines and manages all follow-up. Our process ensures that our retail partners will recover substantially more money with very little expense.

Click here to learn more.

The Zellman Group, LLC is a full-service Loss Prevention provider located in Greenvale, NY. Contact us at info@zellmangroup.com or at 516-625-0006.

RCC's Retail Loss Prevention Forum
Protecting People, Property and Assets

Tuesday, April 12, 2022, 1:00pm - 4:00pm ET - Virtual Format

The Retail Loss Prevention Forum is a must-attend event for retail loss prevention executives, team leaders and junior professionals. Law enforcement, industry suppliers, and experts who work closely with retailers will benefit from attending and participating in collaborative conversations.

The event is Canada's annual gathering of loss prevention, law enforcement and security professionals. Attend and participate in critical conversations about organized retail crime, the rise in violence, changing in-store technologies, risk management, as well as leadership and career development.