Police Group Urges Congress to Pass ORC Crackdown
Fraternal Order of Police Supports INFORM Consumers Act

Legislation would help combat organized retail crime

This week the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the world’s largest organization of sworn law enforcement officers, sent a letter to Congress urging passage of the INFORM Consumers Act to help crack down on counterfeit and stolen goods sold online. The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) Senior Executive Vice President, Retail Operations Lisa LaBruno issued the following statement in response.

“Law enforcement officials across the country are working together to combat the threat of organized retail crime (ORC). Retailers are working with local prosecutors, state Attorneys General and federal agencies to target the criminal rings fencing millions in stolen products from local retailers—and in many cases using the proceeds of those sales to fund larger criminal enterprises from gun running to human trafficking.

“Support from the Fraternal Order of Police for the INFORM Consumers Act shows just how important online transparency is to tackling this problem. Today, criminals can easily hide behind screennames and fake business information, making it harder to track and harder to prosecute. This anonymity has led to an explosion of stolen goods sold online, and the only way to reverse this trend is to start with basic transparency. Transparency and collaboration between law enforcement and retailers are the keys to fighting ORC. Today, FOP has endorsed both, and it is a huge step forward in this fight.”  rila.org

Lowe's Calls for ORC Crackdown
Retailers urge NC legislators to crack down on Organized Retail Crime

Pandemic, opioids, rising prices blamed for sharp rise in retail thefts

Craig Dowdle, the Regional Investigation Manager for Lowe’s Home Improvement, told state legislators Tuesday that Organized Retail Crime has been rising steadily since the pandemic: “I’m not talking about someone who comes into the store because their lawnmower won’t run and they can’t afford the part to fix it, or the roof that’s leaking and they steal a pack of shingles,” Dowdle explained. “These are people who come in and steal significant amounts of product.”

Dowdle told members of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Justice and Public Safety that it’s not just one store; it’s a statewide problem. “I want to make sure you understand. These are professionals, organized, using their phones, using apps, mapping the stores,” Dowdle continued. “And we’ve got so many Lowe’s stores here it’s profitable for a theft group to hit Lowe’s in North Carolina because travel, logistics is down — because our stores are so close together.”

In addition to merchandise theft, Dowdle said the Mooresville-based retail giant has seen a rise in credit card and refund fraud. “Don’t forget when someone does a fraudulent refund, we give them back the tax money too, they get that back. When they are stealing product they are not paying taxes.”

And it’s more than just an occasional power tool that vanishes from the store shelves. As commodity prices have risen, Lowe’s has seen thefts increase for copper. Their number one selling item, lumber or OSB (oriented strand board) has been especially popular among thieves.

Dowdle said Lowe’s employees are there to help customers complete their “honey-do lists” not act as law enforcement: “When someone is pushing out a cart load of product with a can of mace, threatening to spray employees, I can tell you it’s not in our handbook as a how-to of how to handle that situation.”

Sgt. Scott Womack with the City of Raleigh Police Department agreed that shoplifting has become a significant issue since the pandemic. Raleigh police have recorded more than 2,100 shoplifting cases in past 12 months. ncpolicywatch.com

Crime & Retail Abandonment Hitting Big Cities Across the U.S.
Op-Ed: How does Chicago’s once-gleaming Magnificent Mile get its luster back?
“For Lease” signs screamed from empty stores on nearly every block. The Water Tower corner that had previously housed Macy’s stood ominously vacant, eight stories of disused space.

This is a retail abandonment pattern that’s echoed in downtowns across North America: In Detroit, such retailing pioneers as designer John Varvatos, Under Armour and Madewell, who set up shop there after the city’s bankruptcy, have all vanished, while in Toronto, a branch of the Hudson’s Bay department store is closing.

The pandemic, which sent many downtown office workers home, is partly to blame. After declining from a previous mark set in 2021, Chicago office vacancies jumped again at the end of March to a record of 21.2 percent, as more businesses decide not to renew their leases.

Even before covid-19, online shopping was stealing business from these storefronts. Meanwhile, Chicago continues to wrestle with random crime that appears to have hit everywhere, including carjackings and attacks on public transit despite multiple efforts to halt them.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who is kicking off a reelection campaign, has displayed little sympathy for — and has even gaslighted — retailers who have pleaded for help. In December, amid a run of smash-and-grab thefts, she declared that business owners should be doing more to fight crime, even though many employ security guards. Despite the crime concerns, she told business leaders that the city was “poised to have the best economic recovery of any big city in the country, bar none.” washingtonpost.com

Fighting NYC's Crime Crisis - Easier Said Than Done
NYC Mayor Eric Adams grappling with 'perception' of public safety versus reality, as crime spikes 43%

Adams concedes the "perception" of safety in the city "is as powerful as the reality."

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is grappling with not only the reality of public safety, but the "perception," he said during a recent interview, as Big Apple crime is up 43% year-to-date compared to the same time in 2021.

New York Police Department (NYPD) statistics released last week show that overall crime is up 43% year-to-date as of April 17 compared to the same time last year. Every area of crime other than murder is up year-over-year, statistics show.

Adams also noted that city residents "got so fed up" amid reports of "abusive policing" city- and nationwide that "they turned the ship too far in the wrong direction."

Since his time in office, Adams has reinstated the NYPD’s gun-focused anti-crime unit under a different name, launched a plan to try to clean up the subways, and rolled out a new strategy aimed at targeting low-level crime offenders in an effort to stem violent crime before it starts.

From April 11 through 17, murders in New York City were up 50%, from six in 2021 to nine this year, the NYPD said. Shooting incidents increased 32% year-over-year, and the number of gun victims jumped 100%, largely attributed to the Brooklyn subway shooting tragedy. Transit crimes, or those that were reported in the subway system, were up 51.6% year-over-year for the week, statistics show. foxnews.com

More Coverage of NYC's Crime Explosion

● Eric Adams asks NYPD commanders to brainstorm plans to combat crime

● NYC Mayor's crime-fighting promises being thwarted by remnants of his predecessor

● Adams budget beats de Blasio standard — but he still needs to up his game

● Being polite isn’t gonna cut it — Eric Adams needs to raise hell to fix crime in NYC


Repeat Offenders Driving Crime Surge?
San Jose Officials Say Crime Is Up, Advocates Say Data Is Misleading

San Jose officials say early jail release policies have led to a spike in crime — and they're searching for solutions.

Violent crimes, including rape, robbery, homicide and aggravated assault, went up 10.4% from 2020 to 2021, according to San Jose Police Department data – and 2022 may be on track to beat it.

Mayor Sam Liccardo and Councilmembers Matt Mahan and Magdalena Carrasco partly attribute the 2021 rise to pandemic-driven emergency bail orders that resulted in nearly a third of Santa Clara County's jail population to be released – majority of which were individuals who were awaiting trial.

The 2020 policies included releasing low-level offenders arrested for non-violent crimes in an effort to reduce jail overcrowding after COVID-19 infections skyrocketed in the county. Part of those pandemic-era policies also included the California Supreme Court decision to eliminate cash bail for those who cannot afford it.

San Jose leaders want stricter detention guidelines for people who are re-arrested if they fail to appear after a felony charge or have a violent or serious offense history. They also want the state to pay for interim detoxification centers for arrestees who need treatment instead of landing back on the streets or in jail. The proposal is coming before the Rules and Open Government Committee on Wednesday.

SJPD data shows the same 30 people have been re-arrested at least 10 times within a year. He said these data indicates a breakdown in the system. patch.com

Scathing Report Blasts Minneapolis PD Discrimination & Misconduct
Report: Minneapolis police engaged in pattern of illegal racial discrimination

The Minnesota Department of Human Rights investigation found the police department has violated the civil rights law, and multiple iterations of city leaders failed to hold officers accountable for misconduct.

The Minneapolis Police Department has engaged in a pattern of racial discrimination in violation of the state's civil rights law over the past decade, enabled by city leadership over multiple political administrations failing to hold problem officers accountable, according to a scathing report published Wednesday morning by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.

Over a two-year investigation, the state human rights department found Minnesota's largest police department stops, searches, arrests and uses force against people of color — especially Black people — at starkly higher rates than white people, according to the 72-page report.

Minneapolis police also created covert social media accounts — sometimes with no authorization — to surveil Black people and Black-led organizations unrelated to criminal activity. Some officers used these phony accounts to pose as community members and criticize public officials, including a Minneapolis City Council member, online.

The human rights department will work with Minneapolis public officials to develop court-enforceable reforms, said the agency in a statement. The department will meet with community members, Minneapolis officers, city staff and others stakeholders to gather feedback on what the consent decree should entail.

In a press conference, Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero called a consent decree of this nature "unprecedented" in Minnesota. Lucero opened the investigation on June 1, 2020, days after former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes. startribune.com

Baltimore Mayor Increases Police Budget $32M
“The proposed city budget allocates $560 million for the Baltimore City Police Department, a $32 million increase from the money allocated within [fiscal year 2021] after Mayor Scott ran on decreasing the police budget in order to increase funding on housing, recreations and parks, summer employment, city schools and necessary infrastructure,”

The increase for the current fiscal year, Scott’s first budget, did not fund new programs; it was used to pay for the rising cost of employee health insurance and police pensions. The nearly 1% increase in police funding for the 2023 fiscal budget would also be spent on health benefits, workers’ compensation and inflation. And $2.2 million is allocated for a new contract negotiated between the city and the Fraternal Order of Police, which raises the starting salary for new recruits to $60,000.

The department would also eliminate 30 vacant sworn officer positions and instead hire 35 civilian investigators who would assist detectives with research and other investigatory tasks to fill gaps caused by officer vacancies. About 2,793 people are employed by the police department, including 519 civilian employees. balitmoresun.com

Kapolei smash-and-grabs ‘starting to become a problem’

US: 82.8M Cases - 1M Dead - 80.5M Recovered
Worldwide: 511.6M Cases - 6.2M Dead - 465.4M Recovered

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

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 354  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 760
*Red indicates change in total deaths

New England States: New COVID Hot Spot
Covid-19 Cases Are Growing Quickly in Upstate New York
Upstate New York has become one of the most concentrated hubs of rising Covid-19 cases in the U.S., driven in part by a highly contagious sub-variant that was recently identified, according to health officials and researchers.

The region is home to 23 of the 38 U.S. counties currently ranked high for levels of Covid-19 transmission, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of the remaining counties are also in the Northeast, including four in nearby Northern New England states.

Nationally, the estimated concentration for BA.2.12.1 is about 29%, according to the CDC. The agency is still evaluating the subvariant, but the CDC believes that those who are vaccinated and especially those who are boosted continue to have strong protection against severe outcomes, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday. wsj.com

COVID's Impact on Struggling Malls
How health systems are embracing 'medical malls'
Many struggling brick-and-mortar retailers were forced out of business during the Covid-19 pandemic, giving health systems the unique opportunity to reuse vacant retail spaces to expand, while reducing their dependency on "inflexible infrastructure."

In recent years, shopping malls have struggled to stay in business and many big-city health systems have taken over available retail spaces in vacant malls. In fact, a "COVID-19 and the Convergence of Retail and Industrial" study by Moody's Analytics reported that millions of square feet of retail space is expected to become available in the next few years.

As mall owners struggle, commercial real estate investors have started searching for mixed-use opportunities, according to Ginger Davis of Trademark Properties in Charleston, South Carolina—contributing to the rise of the "medical mall."

These "medical malls" can be established inside of converted shopping malls as either full medical centers or a combination of leased spaces offering outpatient health care services alongside leased retail spaces. These facilities offer convenience for patients and providers and cost significantly less than expanding an existing facility. advisory.com

COVID Rules & Law Enforcement
Report: Seattle police illegally ignored COVID mask rules
A civilian oversight board says some Seattle police officers routinely — and illegally — ignored state and city mask mandates during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and refused to obey direct orders from the chief to comply. The Seattle Times reports that a recently released review by the Office of Inspector General exposed a “serious cultural issue” within the department.

The report states the department was fined $17,500 last year after receiving two notices of “serious violations” of the Washington Administrative Code over officers’ refusal to comply with the mandates after inspections by the state Department of Labor and Industries. The report noted it was difficult for command staff to demand officers comply with the regulations because some captains and assistant chiefs didn’t mask up, either.

L&I concluded the police department “did not provide a workplace free from recognized hazards that are causing, or likely to cause, serious injury or death.” The department’s OIG, one of three civilian-run police oversight agencies, said the police chief gave officers “clear direction” and “explicit orders” about mask-wearing as early as March 2020 — followed by a string of increasingly stern reminders. kiro7.com

WHO says weekly Covid deaths have dropped to lowest level since March 2020

China’s call for Covid testing of 20M in Beijing sparks fears of harsh lockdown

Moderna files for US authorization of COVID vaccine for kids under 6

7-Eleven Facial Recognition Lawsuit
Class action: 7-Eleven uses facial recognition tech on customers in stores, violates IL biometrics law
Convenience store chain 7-Eleven has become a target of a class action lawsuit under Illinois’ biometrics privacy law, now accused of improperly using facial recognition technology to scan and remember the faces of people entering their stores without their knowledge and consent.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four named plaintiffs, identified as Ryan Hess, Carolyn Johnson, Thomas McKee and Barbara Moss, all Illinois residents who had frequented 7-Eleven stores in Chicago since at least 2020. The plaintiffs, however, seek to expand the action to cover a class of additional plaintiffs that could include at least thousands of other 7-Eleven customers in Illinois.

The lawsuit centers on 7-Eleven’s alleged use of facial recognition surveillance technology from New York-based Clickit, a vendor providing “intelligent video solutions” to clients, including retailers and banks, for use in improving loss prevention, video analytics and business operations.

According to the complaint, Clickit’s technology scans the faces of people who enter shops using its video surveillance systems, and then captures so-called “biometric identifiers” and stores the data to be used “for tracking purposes.”

According to the complaint, the plaintiffs believe 7-Eleven uses the Clickit technology in surveillance systems at least at some of its stores, including “numerous different 7-Eleven locations in Chicago.”

The complaint notes 7-Eleven has “not disclosed whether it uses facial recognition technology in the U.S.” And the plaintiffs concede that Clickit’s technology allows the face scans and biometric data to be deleted daily.

But the plaintiffs assert this should not matter, because any collection of face scans allegedly violate the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. The Illinois BIPA law has been used by a growing cadre of plaintiffs’ lawyers in recent years to launch a blitz of thousands of class action lawsuits against businesses of many types and sizes. cookcountyrecord.com

Dillard's Racial Profiling & False Imprisonment Nationwide?
Jacksonville woman sues Dillard's, alleging racial profiling
A Jacksonville woman is suing department store Dillard's, accusing the company of false imprisonment and racial profiling for falsely accusing her of shoplifting.

Destiny Aeinpour was shopping at the Dillard's in the St. Johns Town Center with her infant son on Oct. 1, 2018, when she was approached by an employee in the store who accused her of stealing a dress she had on her son's stroller.

Aeinpour showed the employee a receipt for the dress, as well as a tag on the item showing it had come from another store in the same plaza, but that didn't stop a manager and Dillard's loss prevention from getting involved. Dillard's employees escorted Aeinpour to a room where they told her she was being detained and could not call her husband. After eventually confirming that she had not stolen the dress from their inventory, Dillard's released Aeinpour.

The ordeal lasted less than an hour, but Aeinpour says it left emotional damage, which is the basis of the lawsuit she filed Wednesday against the corporation. She's being represented by civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump, who's earned national attention for representing the families of people injured in high-profile cases of police violence and brutality, and Jasmine Rand.

The duo are also representing a Tennessee woman who says she was racially profiled and illegally detained at a Dillard's in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 2020 and publicly searched without her consent.

Both lawsuits claim Dillard's has a national pattern of falsely accusing Black customers of shoplifting. news.wjct.org

Europol report: Deepfake tech could become staple tool for organised crime

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence means deepfake detection and prevention must be top law enforcement priority

The Europol Innovation Lab has today published its first report under its Observatory function, entitled ‘Facing Reality? Law enforcement and the challenge of deepfakes’. The report, which draws its conclusions based on extensive desk research and in-depth consultation with law enforcement experts, provides a detailed overview of the criminal use of deepfake technology, alongside the challenges faced by law enforcement in detecting and preventing the nefarious use of deepfakes.

The report includes several contemporary examples showing deepfakes’ potential use in serious crimes such as: CEO fraud, evidence tampering, and the production of non-consensual pornography. Advances in artificial intelligence and the public availability of large image and video databases mean that the volume and quality of deepfake content is increasing, which is facilitating the proliferation of crimes that harness deepfake technology. Law enforcement agencies therefore need to be aware of deepfakes and their impact on future police work.

Recommendations for tackling criminal uses of deepfakes

Much of the deepfake content created today is identifiable through manual methods that rely on human analysts identifying telltale signs in deepfake images and videos. However, this is a labour intensive task that is not actionable at scale. Accordingly, the report argues that law enforcement agencies will need to enhance the skills and technologies at officers’ disposal if they are to keep pace with criminal use of deepfakes. Examples of such new capacities range from the deployment of technical and organisational safeguards against video tampering to the creation of deepfake detection software that uses artificial intelligence.

Click here to access the report. europol.europa.eu

SEC Penalizes Former Domino's Pizza Accountant for $2M for Insider Trading
Bernard Compton, a Domino’s Pizza accountant from 2005 until 2021, allegedly traded options based on internal data before 12 of the company’s earnings announcements from 2015 until 2020, bagging illicit profits for himself and his family exceeding $960,000, the SEC said. Under a settlement, Compton agreed to pay a penalty of $1,921,394 while neither denying nor admitting to the SEC findings.

“Compton allegedly accessed and reviewed Domino’s confidential data to prepare financial performance reports for senior management,” according to Joseph Sansone, chief of the SEC’s market abuse unit. “Using innovative analytical tools, SEC staff exposed the defendant’s repeated misuse of this inside information.”

In addition to paying the penalty, Compton “agreed to be suspended from appearing and practicing before the SEC as an accountant, which includes not participating in the financial reporting or audits of public companies,” the agency said. cfodive.com

Shifting Retail Employees from Corporate to Store-Level
Iowa-based Hy-Vee seeks to move corporate workers to retail
Iowa-based grocery chain Hy-Vee says it will ask up to 500 of its employees to move from corporate-level jobs to retail positions at its stores. The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports that the move comes after the company already eliminated 121 corporate-level positions in March.

The company says 102 of those employees were offered retail positions. In addition to shifting employees’ jobs, the company said it will be pausing several projects, including a new warehouse in Cumming, Iowa.

The company blamed, among other things, rising inflation, increasing fuel and construction costs and supply chain disruptions for the moves. kcrg.com

U.S. economic growth rate unexpectedly declined in the first quarter by 1.4%
Rising omicron infections to start the year hampered activity across the board, while inflation surging at a level not seen since the early 1980s and the Russia invasion of Ukraine also contributed to the economic stasis. cnbc.com

Kroger hiring push targets 23,000 more workers

7-Eleven, Speedway, Stripes Announce Plan to Fill 60,000 Roles on National Hiring Day May 3rd

St. Paul Starbucks Voted to Unionize


Quarterly Results

Amazon FY 2021 Consumer revenue up 43%, AWS revenue up 37% YoY - total net sales $469,822B
Year-over-year Percentage Growth: North America 18 %, International 22%, AWS 37%, Consolidated 22%

Cheescake Factory Q1 consolidated sales up 27%

Sketchers Q1 DTC sales up 15.7%, wholesale up 32.7%, sales up 26.8%

McDonalds Q1 Global comp's up 12%, U.S. comp's up 3.5%, Inter. Operated up 20.4%, Inter. Licensed up 14.7%, consolidated revenue up 11%

Chipotle Q1 comp's up 9%, net sales up 16%

Domino's Q1 Global sales up 3.6%, U.S. comp's down 3.6%, Inter comp's up 1.2%, Global sales up 0.3%