Crowd control in the loss prevention game

I learned a series of valuable lessons on Saturday.  The most important of all of is that if you are approaching a suspect and they are with a group of other people you have to separate them from that group no matter what.  If not, your endeavors to ensure proper retail theft prevention may prove for naught.

A perfect example of this occurred this past weekend.  A suspect was spotted on the floor, followed throughout the store via cameras by myself and the LPM as she selected a fragrance and used her nails and teeth to remove the plastic anti shoplifting shell from the item.  Once that was accomplished she discarded everything but the perfume itself in various parts of the store until she left where she was stopped by another member of the team under orders of the LPM.

The problem took place when she was being escorted back inside.  Before she had been stopped she had rendezvoused with several friends who were not only following her back inside the store, but also creating a scene.  At one point I thought they would start a riot.

While this was occurring she was claiming she no longer had the item.  I directed my LPM via radio to the locations of the anti shoplifting shell and the other discarded pieces but she insisted that the perfume was still in the store.  A friend of hers directed the LPM to a display rack and produced the missing perfume.

We were shocked and under the immediate assumption it was a bad stop until I reviewed the video.  Not once had the suspect come within ten feet of the display.  That led us to the conclusion that while the group was creating a scene one of them planted the item there AFTER returning to the store.

The moral of this story of retail theft prevention: kick the crowds to the curb and just take the suspect.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase retail anti theft devices from Checkpoint Systems.

For more information on Anti Shoplifting , Checkpoint Security System or Checkpoint Security Tags contact us at Retail theft prevention or call 1.770.426.0547