Another Weekend of Violence in America

860 Shootings - 276 killed - 896 Injured in 15 Big Cities Over Past 7 Weekends
The D&D Daily's Big City Weekend Violence Study - Memorial Day to Labor Day

The Daily's study analyzes weekend shooting data in 15 major U.S. cities from Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day Weekend 2022

Starting Memorial Day Weekend, the D&D Daily began compiling and analyzing data from 15 major U.S. cities to get a snapshot of summer gun violence.

This past weekend, from July 8th through July 10th, there were 96 shootings recorded in these same cities, resulting in 26 deaths and 91 injuries.

The chart below shows the totals for each of the past seven weekends dating back to Memorial Day weekend.

The D&D Daily will continue to track this data throughout the summer to capture the weekend violence trend in our nation's big cities as warm weather typically brings about more crime and violence.

Click here to see the list of incidents per city and follow along each week this summer as this spreadsheet will be updated every Monday. docs.google.com

Read more coverage about America's crime and gun violence epidemic in the section below
 

Theft, Burglaries & Murder on the Rise Amid Soaring Inflation
More theft, burglaries and even murders are the unexpected side-effects of rising prices, this criminologist warns

Retailers fear police are now focusing more on violent crime than on burglary and theft.

Soaring inflation threaten to trigger a crime wave, a criminologist says, and your purchases might get caught up along the way. Rosenfeld, who has been researching the link between crime and macroeconomic variables for years, said inflation acts as a much better indicator of crime than unemployment or a recession.

Trading down

Rosenfeld said inflation forces customers to shop at cheaper stores. While some will switch from Target to Dollar Tree, for example, he said that Dollar Tree and Goodwill shoppers will be more susceptible to the black market.

Rosenfeld thinks it's more likely that demand for non-essential illicit goods will rise, as consumers won't have anything left over after spending on food, which is also suffering big price rises. Jason Straczewski of the National Retail Federation told Insider that organized crime had been rising in recent years, even before inflation began soaring.

Crime rates have not yet risen, according to quarterly FBI data, but Rosenfeld expected that to change by the end of this year.

Violent crime fears

More violent crime could also be on the horizon. As the shadow economy grows, so too do the number of disputes that would ordinarily be settled in court. Rosenfeld says with that option gone, violent crime, including murder, can increase. "The work that's been done on violent crime tends to suggest that high levels of inflation really produce reduced sizeable reductions in institutional legitimacy," he says.

"That is the perception on the part of the population, that social institutions are simply not operating properly. And that decline in institutional legitimacy has from a variety of perspectives been linked to increases in violent crime." businessinsider.com

Retailers Reeling from a 'Pandemic of Theft'
Boston, MA: Product locks flood local stores

A “pandemic of theft,” one retail security supplier said, has put more and more products behind locks

Like many products at retail stores, the $8 toothpaste pack has migrated behind a locked case. The reason, one retail security supplier said, “a pandemic of theft.” The uptick in locked cases, Indyme Solutions CEO Joe Budano said, is just retailers’ attempt “stem the tide.”

“Wet shave products, baby formula, Tide detergent, all types of detergent, skin care products — those are some of the high lift items, and the reason that is, is because they’re small, and they’re valuable,” said Cory Lowe, a senior researcher at the Loss Prevention Research Council.

The products can be easily lifted in high quantities, Lowe said, and easily resold at increasingly-accessible internet outlets at “essentially infinite profit margins.”

With the growth in online shopping and particular circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, the instances of this kind of “organized retail crime,” which can be perpetrated systematically by individuals or large retail gangs, shot up dramatically, especially around urban areas.

After 2020, the National Retail Federation found that 57% of retail organizations reported the pandemic increased the risk of organized retail crime. One Walgreens representative noted it has become “one of the top challenges facing the industry today.”

“A lot of retailers have been making big investments, in terms of thousands of cases throughout the organization,” said Lowe. “And the reason is because retail theft is something that they otherwise can’t do a lot about.”

Anti-theft tags, monitoring devices or other measures can only do so much when people are increasingly motivated and organized, Lowe said. And retailers often don’t want to force employees to confront potentially armed thieves and risk their safety. bostonherald.com

Taking Anti-Theft Measures to a New Level
Why Aldi's Shoplifting Technique Is Enraging Customers
Shoplifting is on the rise, leading retailers to come up with creative measures for keeping their products secure. Stores are doing anything they can to mitigate the lost revenue. Grocery stores certainly aren't exempt from shoplifting, either, and Aldi has taken matters into its own hands. However, its anti-theft measures are confusing some of its honest shoppers.

Some customers are frustrated with Aldi UK's attempts at preventing theft

If you've ever picked up an expensive sweater from a store, you might have noticed a security tag that can't be removed by hand. Of course, this is to prevent shoplifting of pricy items. But now, it's a method being used on basic items, such as Aldi cheese. According to The Takeout, Aldi's U.K. stores have started implementing the hefty security tags on food items, including cheese and meat. Photos surfaced on Twitter showing cheese wrapped in a security tag and meat secured in locked plastic boxes. Users responded with total confusion, while some joked that they would "just eat around" the security tags.

Steak stealing has been a problem at Aldi in the past, too, with a Reddit thread from April showing a photo of Aldi's meat department, which had removed steaks from shelves entirely. Customers apparently had to ask a store clerk for help in retrieving a steak due to the rise in shoplifting. One commenter called the loss prevention measure "ridiculous." 

It's not just Aldi that's increasing its U.K. security measures, either. Business Insider reports that a Sainsbury's grocery store location in London had "security stickers" attached to everything from toiletries to candy. Though consumers might not appreciate the security tags, stores' hands are tied in terms of balancing customer satisfaction and preventing theft. Other grocery stores are adapting to shoplifting as well, with some stores choosing to implement surcharges to offset the lost money. mashed.com

NYC Under Siege by Retail Thieves
Shoplifters hitting NYC supermarkets with increasingly brazen heists
Shoplifters are hitting supermarket aisles across New York City with increasingly brazen heists — emboldened by soft-on-crime laws that are forcing grocers to take matters into their own hands even as they shell out more cash for security.

Audacious thieves are showing up with reusable shopping bags, backpacks and even empty suitcases and waltzing out with stacks of London broil steaks, armloads of air freshener and dozens of ice cream pints at a time. Some brandish knives or hypodermic needles when confronted, and a few employees have been injured while attempting to thwart the shoplifters, grocers say.

“We have rampant theft in our stores,” said Steven Sloan, co-owner of the high-end Morton Williams chain, which has 16 stores, mostly in Manhattan. “We hired uniformed police officers with guns and we’ve never had to do this before. That has helped to deter the thieves but at a huge cost.”

The city’s 30 Gristedes and D’Agostino stores have seen a 30% spike in shoplifting year to date compared with the same period last year, according to president Joe Parisi. He blames the increase on the fact that thieves are not typically prosecuted or arrested for stealing less than $1,000 worth of goods.

“If they know they aren’t going to jail or they are getting out quickly,” Parisi said, “what stops them from stealing?”

Some sophisticated thieves are staking out stores, waiting for the moment when a security guard leaves a post. The pilfered merchandise is resold for a fraction of the cost, sometimes right outside the supermarkets, to passersby or bodegas happy for the five-fingered discount amid record-high inflation.

Petit larceny complaints citywide are up by 43% to 55,876 year to date through July 3, according to NYPD data. In New York, petit larceny — defined as stolen items worth less than $1,000 — is a misdemeanor. nypost.com

DOJ Could Pursue Death Penalty for Buffalo Tops Shooter
Justice Department weighs whether to seek death penalty for Buffalo mass shooter amid racial equity concerns

This course of action would go against the department’s current stance on capital punishment following concerns expressed by civil rights groups.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is mulling over whether it will seek the death penalty in the federal hate crimes case against the Buffalo suspect accused of murdering 10 African Americans in a racially-motivated mass shooting inside of a local supermarket.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has not officially decided on the death penalty, but the topic has become a conundrum for the nation’s top prosecutor. According to The Washington Post, some survivors and victims’ families expressed in a private meeting with Garland that they support capital punishment for 18-year-old Payton Gendron.

However, pursuing the death penalty would go against the department’s current stance on capital punishment. Last summer, Attorney General Garland announced a moratorium on federal executions. The decision came after racial equity concerns were expressed by civil rights groups following the Trump administration’s carrying out 13 executions in his last six months in office, The Post reported. Garland said his office would review the policies of Trump’s DOJ before moving forward with any federal executions.

Civil rights leaders have long expressed their opposition to the death penalty because of the disproportionate number of Black and brown inmates on death row, as well as a number of incarcerated people of color being exonerated as a result of DNA evidence proving their innocence. thegrio.com

(Updated) A Partial List of Mass Shootings in the United States in 2022

US: 90.3M Cases - 1M Dead - 85.7M Recovered
Worldwide: 560.8M Cases - 6.3M Dead - 533.8M Recovered

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

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 360  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 787
*Red indicates change in total deaths

COVID Fueled Self-Checkout Surge
Self-checkout growing even though no one likes it
Despite the fact that both consumers and retailers aren’t always happy with self-checkout, it’s a trend that is here to stay. Retail analysts say COVID-19 hastened the growth of self-checkout as customers avoided interactions with cashiers. The labor shortage is also responsible for its rise.

Of shoppers surveyed last year, 67% said they had issues with self-checkout. The service now accounts for 29% of grocery sales. For retailers, self-checkout hasn’t saved as much money as anticipated, with the increase in losses due to error or theft.

Still, Walmart, Kroger and Dollar General are pilot testing stores that only offer self-checkout. Retail trends indicate – like it or not – scanning and bagging your own purchases is here to stay and likely to become even more common.

The mixed response led some grocery chains, including Costco, Albertsons and others, to pull out the self-checkout machines they had installed in the mid-2000s.

In the biggest headache for store owners, self-checkout leads to more losses due to error or theft than traditional cashiers. "If you had a retail store where 50% of transactions were through self checkout, losses would be 77% higher" than average, according to Adrian Beck, an emeritus professor at the University of Leicester in the UK who studies retail losses. Customers make honest errors as well as intentionally steal at self-checkout machines.. cnn.com  wmbfnews.com

The Return of Masks?
NYC Pushes Indoor Mask Advisory for All as ‘Worst' Omicron Strain Fuels 6th Wave

The BA.5 subvariant appears to escape immunity and transmit more easily, leading some to call it the "worst version" of omicron yet

All five boroughs of New York City are back in the CDC's high-risk category for COVID community spread as of the agency's Friday update, a reflection of the increasingly infectious national climate as the "worst version" of omicron yet holds its dominance.

Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island had all been in the CDC high-risk category for the latter half of May and transitioned to medium risk through June as viral rates and hospital admissions associated with that wave ebbed. The relief was short-lived, though, with all five boroughs now in a heightened state of risk.

That means face masks are recommended for everyone indoors and in public settings, regardless of vaccination status -- again. It comes as some neighborhoods in Manhattan and Queens are seeing 25% positivity rates (again). City health officials renewed their indoor mask advisory on Friday in light of the updated COVID data. nbcnewyork.com

Cases Surge as Pre-Pandemic Activities Resume
Is Covid-19 surging again? Our expert explains how to prepare
An earlier rise in cases this year was driven by the BA.2 Omicron subvariant. Now, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that two other subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, constitute more than 70% of new infections in the country. These subvariants may partially escape the immunity produced by the vaccine and by prior infection, though vaccination still likely protects against severe illness.

These developments are occurring as more people resume travel and other pre-pandemic activities. How should people think about their risk from Covid-19 right now? If they are vaccinated and boosted, are they safe? What about those who recently had Covid-19? What kind of precautions should people take if they still want to avoid Covid-19? And if someone tests positive for the coronavirus, should this person still isolate? cnn.com 

China links seven COVID-19 outbreaks to food packaging

Omicron variant may bring second-largest US Covid wave