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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