DID CALIFORNIA JUST DECLARE OPEN SEASON FOR SHOPLIFTERS?

June 7, 2016 by Leave a Comment

law-3There’s been some news swirling around the LP world for a few weeks now about California and some new laws that the state has passed. Basically, the state raised the threshold for a felony theft to $950. The article hinted that shoplifting has increased in the major retail stores and calls for shoplifting cases have increased by 25% to the LAPD. The article blamed the new legislation for this. Here’s a link to that article if you’d like to read it. (http://losspreventionmedia.com/insider/shoplifting-organized-retail-crime/welcome-to-california-a-shoplifters-paradise/?mqsc=E3836406).

I know I’ll catch some flak from my colleagues, but I’m going to openly disagree. Honestly, I don’t think your average shoplifter is paying much attention to the state laws governing shoplifting. In my home state of Louisiana, felony theft, when I started my LP career was $350. Over time, the state legislators have increased that to $500, and more recently to $750. So where that shoplifter was being charged with a felony 10 years ago, they are now being charged with a misdemeanor. In most cases, they are still booked into parish jail and have to bond out. Very rarely do officers issue a citation. Our jails are just as over-crowded as California and our budget situation is arguably worse. If California is seeing an increase in shoplifting, let’s also consider that the state has no laws regarding organized retail crime.

In Louisiana, there are organized retail crime laws on the books. In addition, shoplifting has a habitual offender clause. These two pieces of legislation are what makes an impact, not the dollar threshold for a felony. Your organized criminal enterprises are what’s causing you problems. These are the boosters who target stores up and down the interstate. The groups that make a living conducing refund fraud and those individuals who just will continue to steal because they see it as “victim-less”. These are the people that impact retailers and these are the ones that deserve the harsher penalties. I don’t believe a high school kid, or college freshman should be subject to a felony if their first offense is stealing a $300 pair of headphones. They need consequences, but a felony record is not one of them.

Why organized crime laws work for the state

If you are stealing for the sole purpose of re-selling for profit, you are a problem. Chances are, if you’re involved with a group like this, you’re also involved in other, more serious crimes. Just this past year, I was able to help local detectives make a case against a ring of car thieves. While detectives didn’t have enough evidence at the time to book anyone on the car thefts, the same people were involved in organized retail crimes. They were stealing large quantities of ammunition and then selling the merchandise at local flea markets and gun shows to fund their car theft operation. Police were able to use the organized crime laws to bring felony charges against them, which led them to the evidence they needed to bust the car theft case wide open. Had it not been for those laws being on the books, these violent criminals may still be out on the streets.

Additionally, Louisiana has a habitual offender clause in the shoplifting law. Anyone convicted of shoplifting 3 times shall be charged with a felony on each subsequent arrest. Basically, if you are convicted 3 times of shoplifting, whether those convictions are misdemeanors or felonies, any subsequent arrest is upgraded to felony charges from the DA’s office. I’ve seen this work in action a dozen or so times throughout my time here. Just last year, we busted a guy for stealing about $200 worth of apparel. He was out on parole for aggravated battery. He had 4 other shoplifting convictions. The DA prosecuted him as a habitual offender, which revoked his parole and he went back to prison to serve the remainder of his 5 year sentence. That’s what has an impact. If a person knows that they can face actual time, you have a deterrence to shoplifting.

So maybe, retail leaders in California should shift their focus from complaining about the felony threshold, to lobbying their elected leaders to pass meaningful legislation that will actually have an impact on shoplifting. While some professional criminals will take advantage of this new law, the retail community and lawmakers should work together to pass laws that target those that are the true problem. That starts with an organized retail crime law, California.

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EMPLOYEE THEFT – A LESSON IN HUMAN NATURE

June 7, 2016 by Leave a Comment

theft (2)It’s no big secret that I can’t stand a thief; I did make a career out of catching them. Shoplifters really get under my skin, but employee theft really fires me up. You put people to work, give them opportunity to grow and instead of putting in the long hours, hard work and dedication needed to move forward, they steal from you. They betray your trust, slap you in the face and take money out of your pocket and food off your family’s table. Will you ever stop employee theft completely? Probably not. You can, however, minimize the risk.

If you employ people, there’s a good chance one of them will eventually steal from you. Through my Loss Prevention career, the excuse I’ve heard the most from dishonest employees was that they did it because it was “easy”. So why are we, business owners and managers making it so easy for our employees to steal from us? The first problem I see constantly is that, over time, complacency sets in. The next is a failure to follow established controls and finally, my personal favorite, is a lack of oversight.

A key to being a good manager is to not be over-bearing. I’ve learned a long time ago to “trust, but verify”. What that means is that you trust that your employees are doing what they are supposed to do when you’re not around, but you verify, and not simply assume they are. For example, you tell your warehouse team that the back door should never be open without a manager present. This is a basic control measure to prevent product from walking out of the back door. You obviously can’t be in your warehouse all hours of the day and night, so you have to verify. CCTV makes this easy. Managers often fall victim to complacency. If the warehouse crew knows that that the manager never checks to see if the doors are open, or that manager never addresses the violation, an environment for a dishonest associate to thrive is created.

Failing to adhere to established controls is yet another way we, as managers, often let our employees steal from us. (It also goes hand-in-hand with complacency.) I’ll give you a great example. I worked for a company that had a carry-out policy with respect to large, bulk items. If an employee was assisting a customer with a large item, the employee had to have the door greeter sign off on the receipt before it was carried outside. This was of course to discourage employee theft. I remember walking near the front doors as an employee rolled out a TV set. The door greeter asked to sign the receipt, and the employee said, “I’ll sign it outside”. There was a manager at the door as well. Both the greeter and the manager did not react to this. I immediately went back to the cameras and discovered this employee had just stolen this TV. A subsequent investigation showed he had rolled out thousands of dollars in this same manner. If the store would’ve followed their established controls and not fell into complacency, this employee would never had the opportunity to steal.

Manager. The word manage is actually in the name! The working world needs managers because most people need oversight. Some may need more than others, and you’ll find that some people need very little. You have to adapt your style of management to suit each of your employees. Managers that sit in the office all day long and are never give a sales floor presence are more likely to be the manager that employees feel comfortable stealing around. This isn’t to say that the manager is “in on it,” but the dishonest employee knows their chance of being caught is greatly reduced when “that manager” is working. Presence on the floor and constant follow up are traits of a good retail manager. Knowing that at any moment you can round the corner to see what the team is working on will keep those dishonest employees on their toes. Chances are, they won’t risk being caught, or better yet, they won’t ever see an opportunity to steal from you!

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WHAT’S THE VALUE IN LOSS PREVENTION AWARENESS TRAINING?

June 7, 2016 by Leave a Comment

meetingpic.Whether you’re a small one store business, or a large chain store, loss prevention awareness training for your teams cannot only protect against criminal acts, but also make a direct and positive impact on your bottom line. There is an inherent value in awareness training that lots of managers just don’t take advantage of. The core of any successful loss prevention program is not how many shoplifters are caught, nor is it how many employees were arrested; it’s training and awareness of your store teams. We are called loss “prevention,” not loss “reaction,” right? So how do you persuade your managers to see the value?

In my experience, in order for a manager to really do something, and to buy in to anything, you have to appeal to the “what’s in it for me” mentality. (Because a job and steady paycheck just aren’t enough.) What’s the biggest complaint from your managers? What I hear most is “payroll”. They need more people and more allotted hours to get the job done right. You surely just can’t dole out payroll hours, as this is the biggest controllable expense you have. So you have to work with what you’re given; but what if what you’re given is slowly being eaten away by shrink?

Shrink has a direct impact on payroll. Take for instance, if your store lost $12,000 last month to shrink and we assume that you have an average hourly rate of about $10/Hr. That $12k you lost could’ve been sales, had you had the product in stock for the customer. That equates to about 70 payroll hours you’ve lost. That’s 3 part time workers, or 1 full time and 1 part time worker. So how do you recoup some of those hours? Awareness training.

Well, who do you train? I always start with the cashiers. This group is your last line of defense against fraudsters. So much can happen at the point of sale. You can have price-switchers, quick-change artists, box stuffers, counterfeiters, etc. A well trained cashier can quickly spot these thieves and save you thousands. Take for example, ice chests/coolers. A poorly trained cashier may never think about opening these up as they come through the line. This is a gold mine for organized criminals. How much product can you hide in a 160qt ice chest? This would be a good starting point for any training program. Every cashier should be expected to open the contents and check for any hidden product. You’d be surprised at what you’ll find.

Monitor your success. Let’s assume you start with this simple step. Each time your cashier finds hidden merchandise, you record the dollar value of the save. Maybe you even spark a little competition amongst your cashiers. At the end of the month, you (and the manager) have a solid number to show the value in that small investment you made in training. Now you can expand.

What makes a successful training program work is having fun. I had a store manager years ago that really inspired her team. She went around the store and hid little notes inside backpacks, coolers and anything else that she wanted her teams to open and look inside. Those notes said, “When found, bring to a manager”. Those cashiers were then rewarded in some way. From this program, this manager was able to make a positive financial impact of over $10,000 in what otherwise would have been stolen product.

That’s an extreme example. I have other stores that have an “item of the week”. The cashier supervisors’ partner with the department supervisors and each week, they showcase a high ticket item. One week it may be an expensive tent, and the next week a high end toothbrush. During the week, all the cashiers have an opportunity to touch the product, learn about it and understand that it’s an expensive item. This not only gives them the ability to speak to the product to our customers, but to also identify any potential price switch scenario they may encounter.

It’s hard to argue with the value a good LP training program can bring to your store. Not only can you increase your sales, but you can also positively impact your shrink and wage metrics. You also limit the exposure your store has to criminal activity, so your employees and customers can shop and work in a safer environment. If you’re not using your entire team to prevent shrink, it’s time to do so; your bottom line is depending on it.

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Get More Out Of Your Burglar Alarm System

April 28, 2016 by Leave a Comment

EASIs your burglar alarm giving you all it’s got? Technology keeps updating but there is one area you may not be thinking about getting more from your dollar: your burglar alarm system.

Alarm systems can now do so much more for the retailer. First, if you are still transmitting alarm signals via your phone line, then you are very vulnerable.  Phone lines are really terrible for transmitting signals. They are slow and unreliable. Your phone line goes down and your alarm is not going to communicate with anyone. Change to cellular communications and you will get the signal out. You see, alarm systems communicate on a different cellular channel than your voice “can you hear me now” channel. That channel is very strong. You may not have good voice service in your store but chances are your alarm system cellular service is great. Cellular signals are MUCH faster also. Cost? Should only add a few dollars a month to your monitoring invoice. 

Heard about or been a victim of copper theft. You know, copper, the metal that your roof top or side of building air conditioner units tubing is made of. Thieves will tear up your a/c just to steal that copper to sell it. This leaves your business down until replacement and repair can be completed. Your alarm company can put a sensor on your outside a/c unit that will trip your alarm, if they try to tamper with it. Cost of the part is about $70 +/-.

Do you have valuable property at your business such as equipment, artwork….. that is never to be moved or removed from the premises?  Honeywell makes a wireless sensor that is about half the size of a pack of cigarettes. This sensor attaches to that item. It can be programed different ways to notify you if the item is moved or removed. This sensor is monitored by your burglar alarm system.

Your alarm company can guide you. If they don’t have a solution or don’t understand, then you should look for another vendor who can think outside the box. 

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HARDENING YOUR PERIMETER – PREVENTING A BURGLARY

April 28, 2016 by Leave a Comment

eas fieldMy grandparents owned a small hardware store back in the late 1950s. Back then, when my grandpa left at 5pm, he simply locked the back door, gathered his belongings and left, locking the double glass front door behind him with nothing more than a standard lock that you’d find on any home at the time. The front of the store was nothing but glass. He had cash and at least $100k worth of merchandise on the shelves. Wouldn’t it be nice if things could go back to the way they were back then? Could you imagine if you left your store this soft nowadays? Burglaries happen, and they happen often. Over the past ten years as a Regional LP manager for my company, I’ve had it happen a total of 12 times. About once a year, or so, someone, somewhere across my region, breaks into one of my stores; or at least tries to do so. We have a lot of things that we implement to prevent this from happening, so when someone is able to breach our perimeter, it’s usually caused by human error.

Hiding in a rack

Out of the 12, six never actually tried to “break in”. They simply just stayed in the store. Closing manager task #1 is to WALK THE SALES FLOOR thoroughly before dismissing the team. Always check the hiding spots, restrooms and fitting room stalls, in addition the warehouse areas. What always struck me about these cases, is the suspect has literally nowhere to go. He’s locked into the store; and during every single case, the suspect was a trapped mouse. This of course, is due to the fire exit bars that are installed and locked once the building is no longer occupied. Most criminals think they can just grab what they want and push out of a fire exit…

Smash and grab

I’ve had two of these during my tenure. Suspect drives a vehicle through the front entrance. It never really works out in the long run though. Of these two, one made it in, but the truck was so heavily damaged, it wouldn’t move. The other didn’t get past the cement bollards in the front. I highly recommend the installation of bollards if you don’t have them. Smash and grabs are a more and more common way to burglarize small businesses. Bollards are a way to quite literally, fight back.

Walk right in

My personal 3 favorite burglaries of all times; which also led to the terminations of three separate managers. I know that closing a store has its own set of challenges and there are plenty of things that need to get done before you go home… setting the alarm and locking the door shouldn’t be the two things that you forget though. Either one, or both has happened and they have usually resulted from a scattered brained manager getting very distracted, or not doing something right on the alarm panel. One just got distracted with a personal phone call that he left the store so quickly that the front doors weren’t locked. There are criminals that check these things often. We see thieves check car door handles to see if the car is locked; well there are some that do the same to businesses.

Rappel down

If you have a skylight(s) it is important to make sure access to your roof is restricted at all times. If not, someone can get up there and steal the copper out of your AC units, or go special forces and rappel down into your store; two very funny stories that you’ll have to read in the next article.

While burglaries are a more common problem that we might think, there are several measures that you can implement to make your store less of a target for these crooks. Whether it’s installing an alarm panel, putting in a roll-down shutter down, or making sure the roof ladder isn’t left accessible and your front doors are actually locked at night. Following some pretty basic steps and using some good old fashioned common sense can help you to avoid the headache and lost money that comes from a burglary.

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FOUR STORY FALL FROM GRACE

April 28, 2016 by Leave a Comment

theft (12)It’s not too many industries where I can share two separate stories of a crook falling four stories after trying to steal. This is why I chose Loss Prevention as my career. It’s not the thrill of the chase, or the feeling I get when I close a big case; no, it’s the funny stories I get to tell!

I’m a Regional LP Manager for a medium sized company. I have about 30 stores across a few states. That also means I’m on the alarm call list for all 30 stores. Basically, if there’s an alarm activation, the monitoring company contacts the store managers, in order of proximity to the store. If they go down the list twice, with no answer, they try the district manager. If the DM doesn’t answer, the call goes to the regional manager (who of course never answers). If none of those folks answer the phone, I get the call. ( I always answer). You would think that it wouldn’t be too common for me to get this call. In fact, as I’m typing this I had to take a break to answer one. Most of the time, it’s false alarms and a manager needs to respond in order to reset the alarm. Sometimes, however, it’s an actual burglary.

About 4 years ago, it was a little after 1am on a Saturday night. I wasn’t quite asleep yet when I heard the company cell ringing from the next room. It’s the alarm company. I greet the caller, who knows I’m the last person on his list and he very hesitantly tells me that there’s been an incident at a store and police are requesting a key holder respond immediately. The store, luckily for me, is right down the road from my home (it’s where I office). I tell the alarm company I’ll respond, but to keep calling managers until one wakes up.

When I get to the store, I see fire, police and EMS at the rear. I get out just as an ambulance pulls away. After a few minutes of searching, I locate the officer in charge of the scene. “You’re going to love this one!” he says with a smirk.

A Darwin award candidate was able to gain access to our roof. Turns out, there was some roof repairs made earlier in the week, and a manger never secured the ladder. This guy climbs up with the idea of stealing the copper wiring out of our HVAC units. Great idea on paper… What he didn’t consider was the near-life ending shock that would result from that attempt. A shock so powerful that it threw him out of his shoes and off the side of the building. He was lucky to survive.

Same scenario, but different store. Due to a manager’s failure to secure the roof ladder after some repairs, a genius had the bright idea to rappel down into the store from the skylight. I would assume that he watched some James Bond movies before trying this. Big difference here was that this young fellow lacked the upper body strength of Mr. Bond.

After scaling the roof, he smashed through the skylight with a hammer. Very crudely, he tied one end of a long rope to an AC unit and threw it down the skylight. He did so right in front of a camera dome as luck would have it… Our cat burglar then begins to scale down the rope by hand; only problem is that he isn’t quite strong enough to support his own weight. He falls. About 4 stories down and the camera captured everything. When he hit the ground, he literally bounces. There’s no movement for a good 5 minutes. Dazed and confused he eventually comes to his feet, only to realize that he has no way out. His plan was to steal several high end items and then climb back up the rope. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. He spent the next several months behind bars; and that was after spending a few weeks in the hospital for a fractured skull and broken femur.

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A RETAILER’S WORST FEAR-STORE ROBBERY

April 28, 2016 by Leave a Comment

theft (1)It was 4:30am on a Tuesday morning. My company cell phone pierced through the quiet halls of my house. At first, I didn’t get out of bed; perhaps it was a wrong number. Silence. As I doze back off, I hear the familiar tone once again. Who could be calling me and for what reason at this hour? I let it ring. I hear the chirp of the voicemail. Before I can muster the energy to get out of bed, I hear my personal phone ringing. This one is next to me on the night stand. Something is wrong, I immediately think to myself. When I reach for my phone in the middle of the dark room, eyes still blurry, I see the caller ID. It’s a sheriff’s deputy that I’m good friends with. My heart is in my throat as I answer. “You’re morning crew was just robbed at gunpoint. Get to the store now.”

I don’t think I even gave my friend a response before leaping out of bed. I quickly get dressed and race down stairs. Those two missed phones calls were from a panicked and frantic store manager. The other from the general manager. I jump in the car and speed across town; waking the VP of Loss Prevention, the regional VP and the media relations department. All with the news that no LP manager wants to say. “Our team was just robbed. I have no info on the wellbeing of our employees. I’ll update you as soon as I gather info.”

I get to the store and see close to a dozen police units. There’s crime scene tape and the local new stations are already setting up shop. I rush to the front door and see that it’s been shattered. Later, I find that the robber fired two shots from a .45… one round came within inches of a stocker, into the door, gaining entry into the store. At this point, I don’t care about the damage, I don’t care about the money. I head straight to the staging area and am suddenly taken into an embrace by the morning manager; someone I’ve worked alongside for 10 years. She’s shaken up, but OK. So is the rest of the team. I finally have good news. I send a quick text to my boss that all employees are safe; no injuries. We lost $9k and have a broken door. All replaceable.

It was no accident that our team made it out of this ordeal safely.

Every single week, our company’s robbery policy and procedure is covered with our teams. While a robbery can happen at any time of the day or night, they are most likely going to occur early in the morning, or late at night. Training your team to react to this scenario greatly increases your chance of getting out unharmed. So we train, constantly on three very important points.

  1. Comply – there is no need to argue with a guy with a gun. Everything in the store can be replaced. The company brings in several billions of dollars each year; the amount of cash that can physically be taken is nothing compared to your safety.
  2. Give them whatever they want — if they want cash, give them cash. If they want the entire electronics department, let em’ have it. If they want you to open each cash register for the change, then that’s what we’re going to do in order to get them out. Do not argue, do not deny. Your job is to get them out of the store as quickly as possible and without incident. Let our cameras and law enforcement partners’ worry about trying to identify them.
  3. Never, under any circumstance, contact the police while there is an active robbery – We never want a robbery to turn into a hostage situation. If the police show up quickly, the robbers could panic and hold the team hostage. There is also the possibility of a shoot-out with police and the potential for injury to the team. This point cannot be stressed enough. Wait until you are positive that the robber has fled the scene before making that call; because once you do, you’re going to have every free unit across the city rushing to your doors.

While I hope to never have to see one of my teams go through an ordeal such as this again, I know that there will always exist the remote possibility of it happening again; whether it’s to one of my stores, or to one of yours. If you’ve never thought about implementing a robbery policy/procedure before, I would highly suggest doing so now. The better you plan for such an act, the better your chances of coming through without injury. Remember, money and merchandise can be replaced; a team member cannot.

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Are You Confused ?

April 12, 2016 by Leave a Comment

EASAre you confused about how to stop shoplifters? Many Retailers are. Often I hear something like “I have a CCTV camera system to stop shoplifters”. The reality is that shoplifters couldn’t care less. Cameras are a very tiny deterrent to a shoplifter. They know you do not have the time or payroll dollars to actively watch. And it is easy enough to create a diversion or simply take your merchandise and move to another location in your store that does not have camera coverage. 

Keep in mind that Loss Prevention Systems also sells and installs cameras. So I have quite a bit of experience with this subject.  Cameras are great tools but they have their limits. They are great for employee theft prevention and investigation, robbery prevention, burglary prevention and so on.  But cameras are NOT proactive (passive)in the case of shoplifting. The shoplifter will be long gone by the time you figure out what is going on if at all. 

However, a Checkpoint EAS system is PROACTIVE.  It is working 24/7 even when you or your staff are not paying attention. Checkpoint Systems labels and hard tags are applied to your merchandise and if the thief tries to steal you products the Checkpoint System at the doors goes into alarm. We can even send an instant message to your cell phone or other mobile device at that time. 

A Checkpoint System never takes a day off, is never sick, doesn’t want a pay raise, and doesn’t want a $15/hour minimum wage.  Don’t you wish your staffing was that simple? 

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NON-TRADITIONAL USES FOR EAS DEVICES

April 12, 2016 by Leave a Comment

shoplifting3EAS is great isn’t it? For the most part, if someone is stealing product “X,” you slap on a quick tag or label and you see a pretty substantial reduction in shrink (for the most part.… Live in the real world). As my LP career has progressed over the years, I’ve seen EAS change drastically. I’ve also seen what retailers apply EAS tags to change as well. Often times, I scratch my head in disbelief at the ideas that come out sometimes and others, I pull my hair out because we could have been more proactive with tag placement. I’ve also seen some fantastic ideas from my store teams on some not so standard tagging procedures.

I had a store a few years ago that were consistently losing their register keys. We later learned that an employee was stealing them and was coming into the store during busy times and just helping themselves to cash in the unattended registers. It took a few months and over $7,500 to put the pieces together before we had an idea of what was happening. That’s a very expensive lesson to learn; especially when there is quite literally, a $0.5 solution.

All of our register keys have a small hole in the top, so they can be hooked to a lanyard for the cashier supervisor to carry around. After our theft incident, we used a pencil tag through that hole to make it less appealing to try and steal the key. Granted, the thief could take it to the service desk and remove the EAS device, but that requires a few more steps that most are not willing to take. As a matter of fact, since taking this one proactive measure, we’ve never had to replace a “lost” register key. For us, it seems to be a great way to maintain a solid key control procedure.

After using some EAS tags on these keys, it really got me thinking about what else is a potential risk in our stores that we don’t secure, but should. The list is virtually endless if you think about it. The next big item that we began securing with EAS hard tags was our handheld units (Symbols/Telxons). A few of our stores fell victim to an eBay thief a few years back, in part due to the ease of removing them from ours store. Since running an Alpha tag with a lanyard through them, we hadn’t lost a single one to theft.

We also have a lot of in-store use only type items (think step-ladders, folding carts, dollies…). As part of our risk mitigation efforts, we utilize EAS tags on all of these items. While they often have to be used outside of the store; the idea that when they do go out, our greeter becomes aware that they are going outside and can better keep track of our in store equipment. You wouldn’t believe how many times someone has stolen a hand truck, or pallet jack from me…

The bottom line is that EAS can be used to protect much more than just your inventory. There are dozens of items inside your four walls that cost you money that dishonest people would just love to take. Why go out and spend any more money that you have to in order to protect your supplies when the answer is already in your store? I’m all about leveraging available resources to accomplish your goals and this is just another item in a skilled LP manager’s tool belt.

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WHEN YOU THINK THEY CAN’T GET ANY DUMBER

April 12, 2016 by Leave a Comment

shoplifting4Everyone I know loves a good “dumb criminal” story. In fact, I can’t go a day without someone (store managers, district managers, executives, family…) asking me to tell a crazy shoplifting story. I have a top 10 list that I usually gravitate towards, but after yesterday, I may have to change it to a top 11.

It was about 7pm and I was finally leaving my office (my office in a store). In order to get to the front door, I have to walk right down the middle of the highest theft area of the store; footwear. Most days, I put my blinders on and try to bee-line to the door, but on this day… well she just caught my eye. No, it wasn’t the girl of my dreams…

As I’m walking down the main walkway, out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of this woman placing a pair of shoes in her purse. Let me build you a mental picture for just a moment. This was a large woman; think Oprah Winfrey in The Color Purple big. And tall. She had to be pushing 6ft3in. She was wearing a dark green pajama dress, with slippers and curlers in her hair. I did not want to confront her; I was, in fact, a little scared. ☺

I radio for one of the store’s agents, but as luck would have it, they’ve left early for the day. It’s just me and the jolly green giant. I had a decision to make; I could go through and make the apprehension, or try and recover the product that she had concealed. To heck with it, let’s have a little fun. So I continued observation and watched as she methodically placed about a dozen or so pairs of shoes in her purse. She then began her slow walk towards the front of the store. Not having an agent in the store, I grabbed one of the managers, who just happened to be former LP. I knew she wouldn’t mind getting in on the action.

As Ms. Banner made her exit, I (scared that she may break me in half) approached her and identified myself as LP. The reaction was just as I thought it would be. She proceeds to a verbal assault that would make reading me the riot act look like poetry. At the very least, I want to recover my merchandise (and hopefully keep my bones in one piece). I reach towards the basket and grab the purse with my product inside. She, quicker that I thought she could move, races around the shopping cart and tries to remove it from my hands. After all, it is her purse… who cares if it contains MY merchandise?

Before she could get it from me, I quarterback hiked it to the manager, who didn’t miss a beat and caught it mid-flight. The manager then tossed it into the storage closet that happened to be open and slammed the door shut. (It locks automatically.) Hulk didn’t think that was funny and flipped the shopping cart over on its side and commenced to beating the door. For a minute there, I thought she’d be able to make it in. She overheard me desperately pleading with dispatch to get me an officer ASAP and she took off through the parking lot. I have to say, it was quite amusing to watch a woman of her stature running through the parking lot in slippers.

She actually was able to flee the store before the police arrived and I first was pretty upset that after all that I went through, I didn’t have her identity. At least I had my product back, right? The officer finally shows up a little later and takes my report. I take him inside to photograph the purse and the stolen product. After I pulled 13 pairs of shoes out, I noticed there was a large wallet at the bottom. Inside was her state ID, driver’s license, library card and several credit cards all with her name on them. I promptly signed a warrant for her arrest.

Would you believe that the next day, she called the store manager and told her that she had “lost” her wallet while shopping in the store? The store manager, unaware of what happened, transferred the call to me. She had no idea she was talking to the guy she almost broke in half and I actually convinced her that the wallet had been turned in to the lost and found and that she could come on by and pick it up. She did. As soon as she stepped foot in the store, she was promptly arrested by two of the counties’ finest.

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