AP & Cybersecurity Leaders to be Recognized at NRF PROTECT

NRF to Honor Asset Protection and Cybersecurity Professionals

WASHINGTON – The National Retail Federation today announced the recipients of the 2024 NRF PROTECT Awards, the highest asset protection and cybersecurity recognitions in the retail industry. Five veteran loss prevention professionals will be honored on June 5 during the annual NRF PROTECT conference in Long Beach, Calif.

The Ring of Excellence Award honors distinguished professionals who have impacted the loss prevention industry throughout their careers. The 2024 recipients are:

	Gary Johnson, a leader in loss prevention for more than 40 years. Johnson retired as Director of Asset Protection & Safety for Guitar Center Inc., overseeing 600 stores nationwide, and has held leadership positions with The Vitamin Shoppe, A&P Supermarkets, Barnes & Noble and Osco Drug Stores. He served two terms as Chair of the NRF Loss Prevention Advisory Council and was a founding member of the Loss Prevention Research Council.
	Mike Lamb, LPC, an industry expert with more than four decades of experience in asset protection, loss prevention and safety. Lamb retired from his role as Vice President of Asset Protection & Safety with the Kroger Company in February 2024 and previously served in leadership roles with Walmart U.S. and The Home Depot. Lamb remains active in the LP/AP industry, serving as a member of the Executive Committee for the LP Foundation, senior advisor for Innovate LPRC and board member of Good2Go, as well as other key affiliations.
	Walter Palmer, an industry expert in loss prevention and a leader throughout his career as a practitioner, consultant and industry partner. Palmer continues to provide strategic guidance and insights to many of the world’s leading retail brands. He is one of the co-founders of LP Magazine, has served the industry across many boards and associations, and has been involved with NRF’s loss prevention conference for more than 30 years.
	John Velke, a practitioner who began his retail loss prevention career in 1977 at Lord & Taylor. Velke’s career includes roles with Fred Meyer, Parisian, Proffitt’s and McRae’s stores, before retiring in 2022 from Total Wine & More. For more than 40 years he has advocated for the AP/LP industry, serving on the Illinois Attorney General’s task force on computer crime, as a governor-appointed board member to Oregon’s Police Academy, and a member of the NRF Loss Prevention Council.

The NRF Retail Cybersecurity Leadership Award recognizes an individual’s cumulative contributions to advancing the state of cybersecurity within the retail industry. The 2024 recipient is:

Rich Agostino, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Target. Agostino has long been a champion for career development programs both at Target and in the broader security community. He serves as Chair of the Board of Directors for the Retail & Hospitality ISAC (RH-ISAC) and is a member of the PCI Security Standards Council Board of Advisors and Google’s CISO Advisory Board.

As the leading authority and voice for the retail industry, NRF will present these awards with retail security executives from across the country at NRF PROTECT, June 4-6 at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, Calif.   nrf.com

Epidemic of 'Rampant Theft & Societal Rot'
Societal Rot, Part 1: Businesses Destroyed by Rampant Crime

This is the first of a five-part series.

The iconic Macy’s department store on Union Square in the heart of San Francisco is closing because of rampant theft and the societal rot that have infected the city.

The massive 400,000-square-foot flagship building, which anchors an entire side of Union Square, has been in business for more than 70 years at this spot, and Macy’s has been in San Francisco for more than 100 years.

Employees at the store told the Daily Mail that thieves take “at least four blazers, 10 wallets, and 20 packs of underwear every day.” Another employee said that thieves routinely steal “men’s Ralph Lauren Polo, women’s North Face, and Levi’s clothing.”

With dozens of store closures in and around San Francisco's Union Square, and the dangerous conditions caused by open-air drug use and mentally ill people living on the streets, fewer and fewer people come downtown to shop.

See the Daily Mail’s map of store closures.

The closures are caused in large part because of lax enforcement of petty-theft laws by rogue prosecutors George Gascon and Chesa Boudin, who served as district attorneys in San Francisco from 2011 to 2022.

Read more about their rogue pro-criminal, anti-victim policies here, here, and here. For a deeper dive, read our book, “Rogue Prosecutors: How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Destroying America’s Cities.”

Part 2 tomorrow: The iconic In-N-Out burger chain forced to close a fast-food joint. dailysignal.com


Using Old Fashioned Police Work to Catch Modern 'Professional' Shoplifters
‘This is a job for them’: Shoplifters are more organized than ever before
Shoplifting used to be a solitary crime. Police said that’s the old days; today’s shoplifters are running a business – an illegal one. They are organized and can turn violent.

Whether it’s one person leaving with an armful of goods or a group, police say that today’s shoplifters act bolder than ever. “This is a job for them. And they treat it like a job,” said Jim Colvin, assistant chief, Brentwood Police Department.

Colvin says a shoplifting call hits police scanners nearly every day. “It’s become much more organized and much more professional than it was early on in my career.”

And today’s shoplifters aren’t typically after the mom-and-pop shops. They want the big box stores. They all provide an environment shoplifters are after Busy stores with lots of distractions; easy access to the interstate makes for a quick getaway; and several entrances and exits.

Colvin says his force has a good working relationship with the stores, alerting police ahead of time if they spot a shoplifter concealing items or removing security tags.

“So, when we get those calls from the stores, and we are in the area, we try to watch, and kinda surround that business, so that we can see where they are going out,” said Colvin.  “Our dispatchers are watching traffic cameras.”

That old-fashioned police work seems to be paying off for this new retail crime. From January to April 2023, Brentwood saw 39 shoplifting incidents, but this year it’s down to 23. Still, nationwide the retail industry wants to see more done. In Tennessee alone, 1.2 million people work in retail with a direct GDP impact of $5 billion.

The industry is pushing Congress to pass The Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, allowing law enforcement from state-to-state to better share intelligence. wkrn.com


Using AI to Predict When Shoplifters Will Strike
How a Pennsylvania-based grocery store is using AI to catch shoplifters
You can now add theft prevention to the growing list of ways that artificial intelligence technology is being used in the real world. A Pennsylvania-based grocery store chain has successfully used software to stop shoplifters -- sometimes even predicting when they'll strike again.

Redner's Markets is now using AI software to help flag suspicious transactions and stop thieves at the self-checkout line.

"If they see it happen multiple times then it starts to steer them to stores and or predictive dates as to when you might see a similar transaction occur," said Eric White, the spokesperson for Redner's Warehouse Markets.

The store was able to catch one thief's pattern using AI, even predicting dates as to when a similar transaction would occur again.

"The system told our agents, 'Hey this person is most likely to be at the store at this time of day.' And our loss prevention agent just took a shot, went up there, and sure enough found the individual doing it," said White.

The technology is installed at all Redner's locations and it's catching more people now.

"These individuals should be able to pay for those groceries and they took these steps to be so creative to try and get around it and we found it anyway," said White.

The bottom line is people stealing will ultimately drive up the cost of groceries at the store, and Redner's hopes this technology will help them keep prices low.  6abc.com


ORC Roundtable Held in NY
Local leaders in New York meet with Home Depot, Walmart, Walgreens to fight organized retail theft

Representatives from Home Depot, Walmart and Walgreens attended and spoke to how these crimes have affected their businesses.

A roundtable discussion organized by Rep. Anthony D'Esposito and Rep. Nick LaLota brought on a spirited conversation about how to deal with organized retail theft on Long Island.

Speakers, which included members of law enforcement from both Nassau and Suffolk counties, focused on the differences between petty theft and this type of crime, which they say is when people steal items with intent to resell them - often immediately online.

Representatives from Home Depot, Walmart and Walgreens attended and spoke to how these crimes have affected their businesses.

Rep. D'Esposito says this type of crime, by the end of 2024, will cost the U.S. over $300 billion over the last three years.

Officials called on state representatives to make changes to New York's bail reform laws. Gov. Kathy Hochul did announce a plan to address this issue in the most recent state budget. longisland.news12.com


PD & LP Officers Team Up to Fight Shoplifters
Boosters, Sliders, Skipscanners, Smash & Grab: Fort Wayne PD street crimes unit is on a blitz to nab shoplifters
A small team of Fort Wayne detectives is making a big difference in combating local shoplifting. The Fort Wayne Police Department’s street crimes unit has teamed up with loss prevention officers (LPOs) at big box stores, the usual target for organized thieves. So far, they’ve logged 105 theft investigations this year, says Detective Doug Gillespie, one of five with the unit.

With more than half the year to go, it’s likely the team will best last year’s record of 209. Of those 105, 53 have resulted in felony arrests. About once a month, Street Crimes and other FWPD officers meet at police headquarters with LPOs and review surveillance tapes to identify wrongdoers.

Friday, the team masterminded a “blitz” at Meijer’s on Lima Road and Gillespie’s unit was standing by to respond, along with area law enforcement. “We’re seeing a large amount of retail theft and of that 60% to 70% is narcotic and drug addiction,” Gillespie says.  wane.com


Retail theft up in NYC as chains scale back self-checkouts
 
Savannah, GA: At least 2 dead, 14 injured after 5 shootings, officials say
 

The Workplace Safety Push
A Joint Effort to Keep Workers Safe

How a closer partnership between OSHA and NLRB will strengthen protections for the health and safety of workers.

The Biden Administration is trying to make it easier for employees to voice their health and safety concerns on the job. To that end, two agencies that oversee workplace safety and health will be working more closely together—creating potential implications for employers.

This partnership between the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is laid out in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) the agencies entered into last fall. The purpose of this partnership is to establish a process for information sharing, referrals, training and outreach between the agencies. Through this collaboration, the agencies aim to address and highlight certain anti-retaliation and whistleblowing issues.

The strengthening of this existing relationship is of no surprise, as President Joe Biden has repeatedly expressed his support of unions and their involvement with OSHA inspections. This partnership also follows the Department of Justice’s own initiatives to crack down on corporate crimes and the role that whistleblowing and retaliation play in those circumstances. Further, events such as the #MeToo movement have increased the focus on whistleblowing as reporting of unethical behaviors (e.g., harassment, discrimination, bullying, and workplace safety) have increased.

Since shortly after OSHA was founded, the NLRB and OSHA have regularly engaged in cooperative efforts during investigations. This MOU is a natural development, as both agencies work to protect the safety and health of the workplace. This most recent partnership allows the agencies to streamline their efforts. NLRB’s General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo stated that this MOU will “bolster protections for workers to speak out about unsafe working conditions by strengthening coordination between OSHA and the NLRB on our enforcement efforts.”  ehstoday.com


The Path Forward for Macy's After Massive Downsizing
A glimpse into a future Macy’s

The department store has provided financial metrics for the fleet of stores that will survive a massive downsizing over the next three years.

For its namesake banner for Q1, Macy’s on Tuesday broke out financial performance metrics for a “go-forward” fleet of about 350 stores, including a group of 50 whose performance serves as a “leading indicator.” The go-forward locations are those spared from a plan, announced in February, to close 150 stores over the next three years.

With a $6.6 billion takeover proposal in front of them, Macy’s leadership, led by newly arrived CEO Tony Spring, seems to have taken an unsparing look at its sprawling network of stores, the consequence of an ambitious expansion decades ago of a retail model that was already in decline. retaildive.com


Under Armour Looks To Do More With Less
In his first quarterly earnings call since returning to the CEO role after four years, Under Armour founder Kevin Plank outlined a new Protect This House strategy, which includes streamlining product offerings, simplifying go-to-market processes, substantially reducing discounting, and making bigger statements around launches.

The strategy focuses on three areas: amplifying product demand and loyalty, optimizing and modernizing operations, and elevating consumer experiences.  retailwire.com


A day with no COVID deaths? It finally happened in California
After 1,476 consecutive days of daily COVID deaths, we went one day without any

(Updated) The running list of major retail bankruptcies

C-store chain Rocket to deploy kiosks chainwide