Retail & Law Enforcement Joining Forces to Fight ORC
Police use of technology to stop smash and grab robberies

It works best when law enforcement and retailers join forces

More proactive retail organizations have employed trained organized retail theft prevention groups, many of which have the investigative prowess to rival the best detective units. However, these specialized loss prevention investigators are most effective when they join forces with a law enforcement agency that takes ORC seriously.

1. ALPR CAMERAS

Stationary automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras have rapidly become one of the top tools of the trade for policing organizations to target offenders. So long as the retail organization has adequate camera coverage on parking lot entrances, they can match up ALPR scans of the suspect’s vehicle from a camera on the main roadway. This tactic greatly increases the value of the ALPR camera to local law enforcement while still accomplishing the same goal of the retail organization.

2. PRIME SECURITY CAMERAS TO GET HIGH-QUALITY IMAGES FOR FACIAL RECOGNITION

By deliberately placing a high-quality camera at the entrance and/or exit of a potential theft location, retail businesses can greatly increase the chances of a potential lead. The camera needs to be placed as close as possible to eye level, and as straight to the face as possible to maximize the quality of the source image. Once a crime has occurred inside the retail organization, they can supply law enforcement with a high-quality image that meets the needs of an effective facial recognition search.

3. PRIVATE CAMERA PARTNERSHIPS

Camera footage of a criminal offense is one of the best pieces of evidence law enforcement can receive. In the case of organized retail theft, if a retail organization has partnered with local law enforcement and granted them camera access, responding officers can arrive with detailed images of the suspect or their vehicle. This greatly increases the odds of apprehension.

4. SHARE MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ORC SUSPECTS WITH ONE ANOTHER

Effective communication between law enforcement and private ORC investigators is key to mitigating retail crime, but many of the traditional communication pathways are siloed to specific individuals. Organized retail crime associations in various states have taken it upon themselves to improve communication between law enforcement and retail investigators. Startups like Auror have come onto the scene to help bridge that communication gap. So long as the law enforcement contributors are trained to know what personally identifiable information (PII) cannot be released, there is little reason not to share information regarding suspects and wanted individuals related to ORC.  police1.com

Seattle Crime Closures
Starbucks to close 5 Seattle stores over safety concerns; 16 total closures
Starbucks will close six Puget Sound-area stores where the company says crime rates have climbed recently as part of a broad initiative to boost security at the cafes.

Five stores will close in Seattle — in the Central Area, on Capitol Hill and in the Roosevelt neighborhood, as well as at Union Station and Westlake Center — and one in Everett. In total, 16 U.S. stores will close by July 31, the company announced Monday.

The closure decisions were based on how many crime-related complaints were logged at each store, a company spokesperson said, and whether attempts to lower those rates were successful. Going forward, store managers will be allowed to choose whether bathrooms are open to the public, and future stores will be redesigned for safety, the company said.

Some of the safety concerns include drug use, theft and assault, a Starbucks spokesperson said. Starbucks said there is a full-time security guard at Union Station, with an additional security support worker at times. The cafe’s hours were adjusted for safety and the store was closed on weekends.

New front-line workers will be trained on how to deal with active shooters and use conflict de-escalation, according to Starbucks. Workers will also receive more mental health benefits as they deal with difficult safety situations, the company said.

Redesigning for safety will include “adjusting store formats, furniture layouts, hours of operation, staffing, or testing store-specific solutions,” according to the memo. Those fixes could include restroom occupancy sensors and new alarm systems, as well as paid Lyft rides for workers. seattletimes.com

Fighting the Global Shoplifting Surge
Britain's biggest supermarket Tesco is putting security stickers on $5 blocks of cheese and butter

A Tesco store is putting security stickers on blocks of cheese and butter that cost less than $5.

The store in Bethnal Green, London, had stickers on £4.15 ($4.96) blocks of Cathedral City cheese, as well as on packs of Lurpak butter which cost £4 ($4.78) with a Clubcard — the grocery's giants membership card — or £5.05 ($6.04) without.

A larger Tesco store on the same street didn't have security stickers on either product. Other Tesco stores in London that Insider visited also didn't have stickers on Lurpak butter and Cathedral City cheese.

The use of security stickers at Tesco comes amid reports of various British supermarket chains putting security tags and cases on everyday products, thought to be to deter shoplifting amid the cost-of-living crisis.

Insider visited various supermarkets around London, and found some Sainsbury's stores that had put security stickers, tags, and boxes on products ranging from toothpaste and Cadbury chocolate to pregnancy tests and thrush cream.

While many supermarkets use security tags on high-value items like alcohol, video games, meat, and batteries, it's rare to see them on everyday products. In a 2017 review of studies on security tagging, academics at University College London wrote that as well as applying tags to frequently-stolen and high-value goods, some stores deployed "fractional tagging" techniques, where some products are tagged in the hope that it will also deter thieves from targeting untagged goods. businessinsider.com

San Francisco's New 'No-Nonsense DA'
SF's new DA wants to grant police access to private security cameras in residences & businesses to combat theft & drug markets
In order to combat open-air drug markets and theft, San Francisco’s new no-nonsense DA Brooke Jenkins wants to grant police access to private security cameras in residences and businesses.

Jenkins, who assumed office on Friday, wants to increase the current access that police forces have and give them access to the cameras so they can monitor the crimes in real-time, a sharp departure from her progressive predecessor Chesa Boudin.

It is a part of her comprehensive campaign to combat crime in the city, which she claims has devolved into anarchy in the name of criminal justice reform. London Breed, the mayor, administered Jenkins’ oath of office last week. She has not yet entered the race for the position and will need to do so in November, probably against Boudin.

Currently, when there is a serious risk of physical harm or death, police departments are permitted access to the cameras. Jenkins’ new regulations would allow them to watch the cameras and deal with the smaller crimes that are terrorizing the city.

Jenkins wrote in a letter to the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee, which was obtained by SFGate, that “mass organized retail theft, like we saw in Union Square last year, or targeted neighbourhood efforts, like we’ve seen in Chinatown, is another area where the proposed policy can help.”

After witnessing how Boudin’s woke policies exacerbated violence in the city, Jenkins rebelled against him and spearheaded efforts for a recall. Since then, she has pledged to bring law back to San Francisco.

“Under my direction, the San Francisco District Attorney’s office will work assiduously every single day to restore law and order to our city and to make it once again the stunning metropolis we all know it to be and the well-known destination that everyone wants to visit,” she said. tdpelmedia.com

RELATED: New SF DA has ‘icy’ meeting with woke Boudin's remaining staff

DOJ's Violent Crime Crackdown Continues
US Attorney Announces 27 Indictments as Part of Federal Violent Crime Strategy

Significant Amounts of Drugs, Guns and Money Seized

Today, U.S. Attorney Michael Easley, along with federal and local law enforcement, announced ongoing and coordinated efforts to address violent crime in Raleigh and surrounding areas. The Violent Crime Action Plan (VCAP) is a collaboration of the U.S. Attorney’s Office with the Raleigh Police Department (RPD), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Wake County District Attorney’s Office, and the United States Marshals Service (USMS). A primary objective of the VCAP is to identify and systematically investigate and prosecute individuals contributing to crime in the city of Raleigh and surrounding areas.

In late June, 27 individuals were indicted by grand juries for federal and state charges and 26 are currently in custody. As part of the initiative, six kilograms of cocaine, 600 bindles of heroin, more than 296 grams of crack, and 15 grams of fentanyl have been seized. In addition, more than $41,000, 26 firearms and more than 200 rounds of ammunition were seized. The gun seizures include a polymer 80 ghost gun.

“Last week, we saw five shooting deaths in Raleigh. Today, we want to put gun-carrying criminals on notice. We are working with law enforcement at every level to get dangerous, illegal guns and drugs off the street and put gun and drug traffickers behind bars,” said U.S. Attorney Michael Easley. “We will use every tool available to keep our communities safe.”

“These indictments and seizures demonstrate the FBI's overall strategy and relentless determination to eradicate the drug-fueled violence plaguing our community,” said Robert R. Wells, FBI Charlotte Special Agent in Charge.  justice.gov

Albuquerque stores lock up products in response to retail crime

Man who said he was 'almost a school shooter' reveals what stopped him

US: 90.6M Cases - 1M Dead - 86.1M Recovered
Worldwide: 563.1M Cases - 6.3M Dead - 535.6M 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

Bad Actors Can Use COVID Era Masks to Hide Identities
Researchers defeat facial recognition systems with universal face mask
Can attackers create a face mask that would defeat modern facial recognition (FR) systems? A group of researchers from from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Tel Aviv University have proven that it can be done.

“We validated our adversarial mask’s effectiveness in real-world experiments (CCTV use case) by printing the adversarial pattern on a fabric face mask. In these experiments, the FR system was only able to identify 3.34% of the participants wearing the mask (compared to a minimum of 83.34% with other evaluated masks),” they noted.

A mask that works against many facial recognition models

The COVID-19 pandemic has made wearing face masks a habitual practice, and it initially hampered many facial recognition systems in use around the world. With time, though, the technology evolved and adapted to accurately identify individuals wearing medical and other masks.

But as we learned time and time again, if there is a good enough incentive, adversaries will always find new ways to achieve their intended goal. In this particular case, the researchers took over the adversarial role and decided to find out whether they could create a specific pattern/mask that would work against modern deep learning-based FR models.

Their attempt was successful: they used a gradient-based optimization process to create a universal perturbation (and mask) that would falsely classify each wearer – no matter whether male or female – as an unknown identity, and would do so even when faced with different FR models.

This mask works as intended both when printed on paper and or fabric. But, even more importantly, the mask will not raise suspicion in our post-Covid world and can easily be removed when the adversary needs to blend in real-world scenarios. helpnetsecurity.com

Retail's COVID Remix
Covid-19 changed consumer, dining habits — and permanently reshaped commercial real estate

The way consumers shopped and ate out (or, rather, in) during the Covid-19 pandemic has altered retail real estate permanently.

The lines between traditional retail and industrial have blurred, with soaring e-commerce sales bolstering demand for warehouse space faster than the market could supply real estate. While that surge has since tapered off, experts who track retail trends and in commercial real estate believe certain trends will be permanent.

Retail-industrial remix

Although online grocery shopping increased during the pandemic because of health and safety concerns, it's a trend expected to stick around — and grow — in the coming years. It's expected online sales will surpass 20% of the overall U.S. grocery retail market in the next five years.

Online grocery shopping has prompted unique needs for grocery real estate, including revamped retail stores to allow for easier pickup and an increasing reliance on cold-storage and dry fulfillment centers.

Matt Walaszek, director of research at CBRE Group Inc., specializing in industrial and logistics pointed to Cincinnati-based grocer The Kroger Co. amid a national expansion of its automated warehouse network. Among other features, the facilities give Kroger additional capability to deliver merchandise directly to customer households.

Inflation has hit grocery bills especially hard, with food-at-home prices rising 11.9% annually between May 2021 and May 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A recession may slow online grocery shopping and the cold-storage sector's trajectory but, ultimately, groceries are purchases most consumers have to make, regardless of economic conditions.  bizjournals.com

Shrugging Off the Latest COVID Wave?
As Sixth Covid Wave Hits, Many New Yorkers Shrug It Off

New Yorkers respond to a highly transmissible new wave of Covid cases with the most New York of attitudes.

New York City’s Covid-19 test positivity rate is 15 percent, an intensity not seen since January. Transmission levels of the virus, according to federal guidelines, are high in every borough. Even hospitalizations, while far below previous peaks, are rising again, as the most transmissible Omicron variant yet, BA.5, spreads through the city and nation.

Earlier in the pandemic, such news might have been met with a mix of foreboding and fear. Now, New York is meeting the moment with more of a “meh.” As New York City enters its sixth wave of the virus, few seem inclined to get themselves into high alert mode again.

“At this point I am not worried,” said Carla Hernandez, as she and her two children sat on a blanket in the shade of a tree Thursday in a park in the Queens neighborhood of Corona, once the epicenter of the pandemic. “We know there’s a pandemic, but we have to keep moving.” nytimes.com

Biden officials push to offer second booster shot to all adults
Plan would make coronavirus shots available to millions more amid rising cases, hospitalization

Biden administration announces new strategy to tackle Covid subvariant

Stunning spread of BA.5 shows why this California COVID wave is so different