Be on the lookout - National Retail Security Survey out for completion

National Retail Federation & Loss Prevention Research Council

NRF's National Retail Security Survey (NRSS) has been a critical benchmark for the retail industry for more than 30 years. Conducted in partnership with the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC), the report plays a key role in supporting asset protection departments, educating policymakers, media and other stakeholders. As retailers face increasingly alarming levels of crime, violence, theft and loss, the report has never been more vital.

NRF recently distributed the 2023 NRSS survey to loss prevention and asset protection (LP/AP) pyramid leaders for more than 300 retail brands. Strong retail brand involvement is critical to ensure the report accurately reflects the current security landscape. Across the industry, this report is used to support benchmarking, budgeting and department initiatives. The survey results are planned for release later this year in the fall.

On behalf of NRF, the LPRC and the entire retail industry, we appreciate your participation and support. We request that surveys only be completed at the link provided within each individual email address.

If your organization's LP/AP pyramid head has not yet received the 2023 NRSS survey, please reach out to David Johnston at NRF or Cory Lowe at the LPRC. Thank you.
 

A City on Edge - What's the Public Response?
Will the Security Guard Eventually Be Prosecuted?
Does Calif. AG or the Fed's jump in and file charges?

San Francisco DA's Walgreens Decision NOT to Prosecute Making Headlines Globally

Demonstrators took to Market Street in San Francisco Monday evening demanding that Jenkins change her decision.

No Charges for the SF Walgreens Security Guard in Shooting of Alleged Shoplifter
SF DA Brooke Jenkins won't file charges in Banko Brown killing - Here's the whole story
Two weeks after San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins' city-rocking announcement that she would not pursue murder charges in a Walgreens security guard's killing of Banko Brown, Jenkins now says she won't bring any charges at all.

The San Francisco District Attorney's Office, which also published footage of the killing and police reports on Monday, said there was "insufficient evidence" to press criminal charges after an investigation determined "Anthony acted in lawful self-defense when he fired his weapon at Brown."

"Given the totality of the circumstances, including the threat that Anthony believed, and could reasonably believe, the evidence shows that Brown's shooting was not a criminal act because Anthony acted in lawful self-defense," the district attorney's office wrote in the report. "Thus, Anthony is not criminally liable for the death of Brown."

John Burris, the Oakland civil rights attorney representing Brown's family, told The Examiner that the "horrible, horrendous" video of Anthony shooting Brown had "no basis to use deadly force" in a shoplifting case, "particularly when it was the security guard who was the aggressor."

Security footage from inside the Walgreens that prosecutors published on Monday shows Brown attempting to leave the 825 Market St. store with a bag.

Continue Reading - Incident - Interviews - Guard's Version - SF Board of Supervisors Reactions - DA Reports - LE Additional Videos - The Global Response


Retail Workers Face Growing Violence & Safety Risks
Is retail quickly becoming one of the most dangerous jobs in America?

Walmart and Target employees reveal the most dangerous parts of working in retail, from towers of boxes to armed customers and inattentive drivers

Front-line retail workers face a variety of workplace hazards both inside and outside their stores.

In the past few months, a 27-year-old Walmart employee died after being struck by a vehicle in a store parking lot in Colorado, a Target worker was stabbed in Chicago, and a Lowe's worker was pinned under a box in Louisiana.

"There are a lot of dangerous aspects to working retail," said a Walmart employee of eight years who works at a store in Minnesota. "Hell, even some of the customers are dangerous. It's not the most dangerous job in America, but it's moving up the list."

Retail workers describe 'near misses' with unbalanced boxes and badly packed freight

Many workers told Insider the backroom is often a place of potential danger. They said that short deadlines and low staffing levels make it difficult to unload inventory from freight trucks and store it safely. The worker also said it's not unusual for his store to receive a truck that is dangerously packed, with heavy pallets of water or milk stacked on top of unsteady pallets of paper towels or pet food.

Store workers have been threatened with guns

On the store floor, shoplifters and customers wielding guns make some employees particularly nervous.  The number of assaults in retail establishments has been increasing at a faster pace than the national average, according to a New York Times analysis of FBI data.

Between January 2020 and November 2022, Walmarts nationwide saw 363 incidents of gun violence and 112 deaths as a result, per Guns Down America, a nonprofit gun-safety group. To be sure, Walmart has the most stores in the US, with roughly 4,700 locations, and supermarkets in general have long been a target of gun violence.

Retail workers say reckless drivers pose a threat in parking lots

The hazards of retail work extend beyond the store's front doors. The employee also said there have been shootings in the parking lot of her store, but more often, the dangers of the parking lot are posed by inattentive or impatient drivers. businessinsider.com


NYC Retail Workers Continue to Speak Out Over Violence & Crime Surge
Hero retail store workers beg for better laws as NYC's deadly crime wave rages
We need Albany to act on legislation that will protect retail workers, improve safety and show consumers we take these issues seriously.

Since the pandemic's start, however, retail work has become increasingly dangerous. Retail theft is on the rise, with robbery, burglary and other crimes increasing by 22%. And while 327 offenders accounted for 30% of New York City's 22,000 retail theft arrests in 2022, recidivists were arrested almost 6,600 times, for an average of 20 times each.

The results of this are obvious: Merchants have made approximately 63,000 complaints - most going unresolved. As a result, shoplifting is vastly underreported and shopkeepers are putting themselves in harm's way to resolve altercations.

These are not just stats and figures: Assaults on grocery-store or bodega workers are happening nearly every day.

I am part of a coalition called Collective Action to Protect Our Stores, and we have publicly released several videos that show just how frightening these can be: workers threatened with knives, cashiers beat up and workers endangered with weapons.

Common-sense fixes

Collective Action to Protect Our Stores is backing numerous pieces of legislation in Albany that are going to help us work in safer environments. They include a bill by Assemblymember Manny De Los Santos and Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton that elevates an assault of a retail worker to the class-D felony of assault in the second degree.

Other pieces of legislation include a bill to create the offense of fostering the sale of stolen goods, to help stop people from reselling items they steal, and raising a subsequent offense to grand larceny in the fourth degree.

Finally, we are asking for district attorneys to use "Harm on Harm," a tool recently added in the bail-reform laws that allows DAs to request and set bail for repeat offenders who are facing charges in another case and are rearrested for causing another harm. nypost.com


Wrongful Death Suit Filed in Connection to Buffalo Store Massacre
Lawsuit alleges that social media companies promoted White supremacist propaganda that led to radicalization of Buffalo mass shooter
A wrongful death lawsuit filed against several social media companies Friday alleges that social media lent to the radicalization of the gunman who shot and killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, last May.

The lawsuit alleges that the then 18-year-old Payton Gendron "was not raised by a racist family" and "had no personal history of negative interactions with Black people." Gendron was motivated to carry out the attack at Tops Friendly Market "by racist, antisemitic, and white supremacist propaganda recommended and fed to him by the social media companies whose products he used," according to the lawsuit.

John Elmore is one of the attorneys who filed the suit on behalf of the families of three victims of the mass shooting - Heyward Patterson, Katherine "Kat" Massey and Andre Mackniel, and assistant store manager Latisha Rogers who survived the shooting. Elmore told CNN that this is a "lurking danger."

The lawsuit claims the social media companies "profit from the racist, antisemitic, and violent material displayed on their platforms to maximize user engagement," including the time Gendron spent on their platforms viewing that material. cnn.com


SF Expanding Ambassador Program to the The City in the Mission
Where San Francisco is sending community ambassadors next
The City is taking a page out of its Tenderloin and Mid-Market playbook to address problems in the Mission.

San Francisco announced a new program for the neighborhood Monday that will include the deployment of 16 new community ambassadors, seven days a week, in the 13-block stretch between 14th and Cesar Chavez streets.

The program, dubbed Mission SAFE Streets, is a response to deteriorating conditions in the neighborhood that include unpermitted street vending, unsheltered homelessness, and open drug use.

Since the pandemic, The City has leaned heavily on community ambassador programs to address street conditions in its most challenging neighborhoods, including the Tenderloin, where Urban Alchemy ambassadors are a regular presence.

The ambassadors will not intervene in situations that could pose a serious safety risk, leaving such work to the police. They will be trained in de-escalation techniques and how to interact with people experiencing mental health crises, according to The City.

Their efforts will be bolstered by increased foot patrols by the San Francisco Police Department's community ambassadors, a group comprising retired and unarmed cops. sfexaminer.com


The D&D Daily Honors Law Enforcement on National Police Week 2023
National Police Week 2023: May 14 through May 20, 2023
National Police Week offers honor, remembrance, and peer support, while allowing law enforcement, survivors, and citizens to gather and pay homage to those who gave their lives in the line of duty.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed a proclamation which designated May 15 as Peace Officers Memorial Day and the week in which that date falls as Police Week. Currently, tens of thousands of law enforcement officers from around the world converge on Washington, DC to participate in a number of planned events which honor those that have paid the ultimate sacrifice.

The Memorial Service began in 1982 as a gathering in Senate Park of approximately 120 survivors and supporters of law enforcement. Decades later, the event, more commonly known as National Police Week, has grown to a series of events which attracts thousands of survivors and law enforcement officers to our Nation's Capital each year.

The National Peace Officers Memorial Service, which is sponsored by the Grand Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, is one in a series of events which includes the Candlelight Vigil, which is sponsored by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) and seminars sponsored by Concerns of Police Survivors (C.O.P.S.)

National Police Week draws in between 25,000 to 40,000 attendees. The attendees come from departments throughout the United States as well as from agencies throughout the world. This provides a unique opportunity to meet others who work in law enforcement. In that spirit, the Fraternal Order of Police DC Lodge #1 sponsors receptions each afternoon and evening during Police Week. These events are open to all law enforcement personnel and are an experience unlike any other.

Click here for a schedule of events honoring America's law enforcement community. policeweek.org nleomf.org


DOJ: Office for Victims of Crime
Resources and Support for the Victims in Allen, Texas - May 8, 2023
The Office for Victims of Crime staff members extends our condolences to the victims of recent mass shootings.

OVC extends our support for the victims and those impacted by the shooting at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas on May 6, 2023.

We offer the below resources that may help victims, their families, and the community during this difficult time.

Resources for victim service providers, law enforcement, first responders, and community and faith leaders responding to this tragedy are also listed. ojp.gov


'Making Our City Safer': DC Mayor Proposes Crime Bill
Mayor Muriel Bowser seeks to increase penalties for illegal gun possession and for violent crimes that target people with physical or mental impairments.

Philadelphia Officials Discuss Summer Crime Prevention Plans

Daughter of late Chicago cop frustrated by city's crime surge

SDM's Top Systems Integrators Report
Revenue's Up 32% & 82% Predict 11% Growth TY

The 2023 SDM 100: Solving the Labyrinth
SDM 100 companies reported a wide variety of experiences in 2022, very much depending on the path, location and unique set of challenges that made up their business conditions last year. As a group, however, they continue to rise to the challenges put before them and find their individual path to success.
This year's SDM 100 companies' answers when asked to describe their business success in 2022 were truly a puzzle. As soon as one would say "best year ever" another company would describe the market as "flat." Some said supply chain issues were quickly resolving, while others predicted they would still loom large in 2023. And some described certain technologies or markets as very strong - residential or commercial, fire or video, for example - only for the next company to say the exact opposite.

The 2023 SDM 100 ranks U.S. companies that provide electronic security systems and services to both residential and non-residential customers. This ranking is based on information provided to or, in few cases, estimated by SDM. sdmmag.com

SDM 100 companies total annual revenues rose a whopping 32 percent in 2022 ($15.1B) to its highest level since 2016

SDM 100 dealer optimism - 82% predict revenue will be up with 11% average increase

SDM 100 Average Net Profit Margin: 14%

SDM 100 companies reporting increased profits rose 6 percentage points,

SDM 100: PRODUCT Category Segments three most sizable - integrated non-residential systems, video surveillance and intrusion (burglar) alarm systems.