Police in the Colorado city of Aurora are targeting shoplifters at a store popular with sticky fingered thieves
While crime in Aurora has gone down, retail theft continues to plague businesses. As a result, Aurora police has been targeting shoplifters at a store popular with sticky fingers. Some suspects arrested for stealing were already wanted for other crimes.
"It's very infrequent that we come across a shoplifter who is just committing the crime of shoplifting," said Officer Joseph Valdez with the Aurora Police Department.
"A lot of times, what we see is these individuals are involved in much more serious crimes, so it's important for us to not overlook small things."
Valdez coordinated a shoplifting operation at the Target store on Ellsworth Avenue. He says it stemmed from ongoing communication with Target's loss prevention team, who had been reaching out about frequent incidents.
In August, Mayor Mike Coffman met with APD and Target leaders to discuss ways to reduce retail theft.
In a Facebook post, Coffman writes:
"One interesting comment by Target was that the closure of the Walmart Neighborhood Market store, at Havana and Colfax, will have a negative impact on them. That's because the store closed because the retail theft losses were too high, relative to sales, and that although Target will inherit some new customers from the closure, they will also get their share of the retail thieves from the closed Walmart store."
The impact of shoplifting trickles down to everyone, from the rising price of items to the inconvenience of waiting to get them unlocked from theft-proof cases.
Theft at this Target store has become so frequent, men's socks and underwear are behind glass.
Aurora says these operations aren't just about recovering stolen items, but making sure customers and employees feel safe.
"What we've had reported to us from Target is that when we're not there, a lot of these same people tend to run. Their staff has been assaulted. Their staff has been pushed out of the way and things like that," Valdez explained. "When the shoplifting and these crimes are going up, our community doesn't feel safe shopping in these stores."
During their operations at a single store, APD made 22 arrests -- and not just for theft. Several people caught stealing were found to have drugs on them, from fentanyl to methamphetamines. Some had outstanding warrants for other crimes.
"We were able to tie the cases together and work with prosecutors to charge them for all of those things which ultimately result in them getting charged with felonies," said Valdez.
In March, city council lowered the theft threshold for mandatory minimum sentences to $100. They also increased jail time for repeat offenders.
For several people who were caught, APD says they were able to work with Target to find previous times they've shoplifted and charge them for items they stole in the past.
"It's important for people to understand that we're not going to tolerate it just because it's a lower-level crime," said Valdez.
Since working with Target, APD says reports of shoplifting there have gone down.
APD will continue conducting similar operations at stores where retail theft is common.
