Crime Impact Study

Check out the amount of new crime created by local Wal-Mart’s. Follow this link, put in your zip code. [Link: http://walmartcrimereport.com/report.html]


LOW PRICES & HIGH CRIMES:
CRIME AT WAL-MART
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Every time you look in the news, it seems like there’s always something terrible happening at Wal-Mart. Shootings, robberies, people being abducted, assaults and theft. Many towns’ police departments just can’t keep up with the “minor crimewaves” that come along with Wal-Mart stores.

These news stories are just a sample of the crimes that happen at Wal-Marts all over the country, every day…


Crime Linked to Wal-Mart Supercenter Overwhelms Police In Small Utah Town
The Associated Press
5/06/04

Officer Nate Thompson remembers when green fields and an egg farm stood here on the site of the 212,000-square foot Wal-Mart.

Before the 24-hour Supercenter opened, the city of approximately 4,000 residents retired to their homes after dark, with two solitary bars providing the town's only late-night distractions.

``We're just kind of a boring little city, you know,'' said Thompson, 31.

But boring is a thing of the past in Harrisville--at least for the Harrisville Police Department. Since Wal-Mart opened in early 2001, calls to the department have jumped by a third. The number of officers has increased from four to six. The store's parking lot, where more than half the city's DUIs originate, is now patrolled overnight.

``Our DUIs skyrocketed,'' said Thompson, cruising the parking lot one recent Friday night. ``It just went through the roof.''

As the world's largest retailer puts its stamp on rural communities, some towns are discovering that while the 24-hour big-box store may bring financial benefits, they go hand-in-hand with an unintended downside: increased burdens on law enforcement.

``You just about name it,'' said Clinton Police Chief Bill Chilson. ``Domestic violence, shoplifting, fraud scams, we've had DUI, traffic accidents, medical situations _ we haven't had any shootings yet.''

Chilson estimated that the population of his city of 18,000 nearly doubles in size each day because of his city's Supercenter, one of 19 Wal-Mart discount store-supermarket hybrids in Utah and nearly 1,400 around the country. Warned of what to expect by similar towns with 24-hour Wal-Marts, he recalled one court judge asking him, ``Have you been Wal-Mart-ized yet?''

In some towns across the country, law enforcement agencies have even opened substations in their local Wal-Marts to better respond to the increased activity.

Wal-Mart says it works closely with law enforcement on crime-prevention measures, including staff training and community outreach. Each store has cameras and undercover security guards, many of them former law enforcement officers.

``Before we build a store, we begin a conversation with local law enforcement and we begin building a relationship with them,'' said Sharon Weber, a spokeswoman for the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer.

While the stores have been dogged by criticism that they attract too much traffic, create low-wage jobs and destroy neighboring businesses, the potential effects on local law enforcement have drawn little attention.

``Within the last few years we've seen a growing number of towns around the country that accept this kind of big box sprawl and discover afterward that they're really quite costly from a public service standpoint,'' namely policing and roads, said Stacy Mitchell, a senior researcher with the Minneapolis-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Because big retailers like Wal-Mart have zero tolerance toward shoplifters, they generate more police calls than would a number of smaller stores combined, Mitchell said.

But different agencies report varying experiences. The majority of the more than 30 small to mid-sized police agencies around the country who agreed to be interviewed for this story said their departments are able to effectively handle the increased calls for service Wal-Mart brings. A few reported no corresponding crime spike and only negligible increases in calls to police.

Overwhelmingly, police chiefs defended Wal-Mart as an asset to the community and helpful to law enforcement, providing full access and information for investigations and grants to fund police projects, to say nothing of the tax benefits the store brings the community.

``Thank goodness for Wal-Mart, that's all I can say,'' said Harrisville Mayor Fred Oates. ``Any mayor in the United States who had the opportunity would be glad to have a Wal-Mart.''

Harrisville earns about $60,000 monthly in sales taxes from Wal-Mart, Oates estimated, and that figure will jump 40 percent after an access road to the store is paid for out of sales tax revenue this year.

Still, when the retail powerhouse is built in a small rural community, the effect on the local police department can be devastating.

``It is at times overwhelming,'' said Chief John Slauch of the West Sadsbury Township Police Department in rural Pennsylvania.

``We saw a significant increase in crime and incident calls for service from the day Wal-Mart opened,'' as the anchor store in a new development in 2002, he said. Crime jumped 55 percent from the year before Wal-Mart opened to 2003, while calls for service increased 57 percent from 2002 to 2003, he said.

And municipal taxes don't cover the extra costs incurred by the eight-officer police force, said Slauch.

``I really don't think Wal-Mart is concerned with what happens on the local level, they're concerned with how much money they're making,'' he said, adding, ``They're not looking at the burden they're creating.''

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Back in Harrisville, more than 100 cars are still parked in the vast Wal-Mart parking lot well past midnight. Drug users on methamphetamine tend to gravitate to this store in the wee hours of the night.

``We look at Wal-Mart as the first line of defense in terms of crime coming into the city,'' said Officer Thompson, sitting in his black Camaro patrol car.

Thompson looks for the paranoia and uncontrolled body movements that betrays ``tweakers,'' addicts high on meth. Drug DUIs outnumber those involving alcohol three to one in Harrisville, and most originate in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

``No one wants to pay more money _ including tweakers,'' he said, laughing.

In all its stores, Wal-Mart has limited the amount of cold medicine any one person can buy, since over-the-counter medications containing ephedrine or pseudoephedrine can be used to produce methamphetamine.

Besides the 150 DUIs last year, most of the crime is directed at Wal-Mart, including shoplifting, check fraud and petty scams. The store's most serious incident was an officer-involved shooting in January, when a 25-year-old man pointed a fake gun at an officer who returned fire, wounding the suspect.

The vast majority of those arrested in Harrisville are from neighboring Ogden, population 77,000, said Harrisville Police Chief Max Jackson. Because of the increased volume of cases, court times have been extended to allow the city prosecutor time to negotiate pleas.

Despite the additional burdens, both Thompson and Jackson defend Wal-Mart as ``good partners.'' Since the store opened, Wal-Mart has donated funds for a bike patrol program, firearms, computers in patrol cars and training materials and equipment.

Still, Jackson, who sits on the board of The National Center for Rural Law Enforcement, said he plans to raise Wal-Mart's impact on small police agencies as a nationally growing issue when the board next meets.

As for Thompson, Wal-Mart may have handed him an unintended prize. He was named the Utah Peace Officers Association Officer of the Year for 2002.

``It was based on the amount of arrests I made, basically because of Wal-Mart.''


Area Wal-Mart stores generating crime waves
The Intelligencer (Bucks County, PA) – 8/8/2004

By GREG COFFEY

Most people know Wal-Mart stores bring low prices to their communities.

What they don't realize is that the stores may also bring minor crime waves, attracting shoplifters and check bouncers like bargain hunters to a closeout sale.

"They're probably the vast majority of our bad checks and retail thefts," Hilltown Police Chief Chris Engelhart said of the Wal-Mart store on Route 309.

In fact, during the 18 months prior to July, Wal-Mart accounted for 76 percent of the 108 retail theft reports to Hilltown police, and 66 percent of the 56 bad check reports.

Similar problems are being seen at other Wal-Mart stores throughout Pennsylvania. In Lancaster County, a district justice was forced to dedicate two days each week exclusively for arraignments of people charged with committing crimes at a local Wal-Mart.

The problem is nowhere near as bad at the five local stores, but several police chiefs say their officers are spending more time dealing with the retail giant's issues.

Wal-Mart opened a store in 1999 on Route 309 in Richland, an easy 20-minute drive north from Hilltown. Since then, Police Chief Lawrence Cerami says the store has generated 2,017 reports for retail theft and bad checks, or about 12 percent of all calls for assistance the department has received.

Although Richland has several large stores, including Kohl's and Bon Ton, none gets nearly as many criminal reports as Wal-Mart, Cerami said.

And the impact is greater than the numbers illustrate, the chief said, because he and his officers often respond to calls at the store that don't lead to reports. These incidents include instances of suspicious people or teenagers squealing their tires in the parking lot. When police arrive, he said, the suspects are usually long gone.

But it's the theft and bad check issues, and what Cerami described as Wal-Mart's reluctance to tackle the problems, that have the chief concerned.

Several years ago, the police department asked store managers to begin requiring thumbprints from people who write checks. The request was denied and other suggestions seem to have gone nowhere, Cerami said.

"They say the corporate people don't like the ideas or that they don't want to offend the customers. Well, if you don't care about getting ripped off, maybe we shouldn't care as much about solving the crimes," he said.

Read Hayes is director of the Winter Park, Fla.-based Loss Prevention Research Council, a coalition of retail chains that fund research into theft and other crimes committed in business settings. The organization includes retail giants such as CVS Pharmacy, Home Depot, and Barnes and Noble Booksellers.

Although theft is a problem with all retail stores, Hayes said, Wal-Mart is a particular target for several reasons.

"You've got a lot of hot products, you've got a large area where people can get lost, and not a lot of employees to watch them," he said.

By hot products, Hayes means items that customers always need or want, such as razor blades, cosmetics, compact discs, and electronics. Those items are often spread out across a vast floor, with dozens of tall shelves that create hidden pockets which make thieves feel as though no one is watching, whether that's true or not.

Other stores, such as Target, may have wider aisles, smaller shelves, and better lighting, all of which discourage potential shoplifters, Hayes said. However, nothing will ever prevent theft completely.

"These things are always happening, whether it's at Wal-Mart or somewhere else."

Not all Wal-Mart stores are experiencing the crime trend.

Over the past three years, there have been just 16 reported thefts from the Wal-Mart in Horsham, according to police Chief Robert Ruxton.

"That's low for any retail store over three years," he said.

Not only are theft reports there low, but when they do occur, Ruxton said, store employees make the department's work easier by jotting down names and other information the police need.

"It's a very easy process. We're happy," he said.

In Hilltown, Engelhart said the numbers are somewhat misleading because Wal-Mart receives far more customers than any other business in town.

The global chain attracts millions of customers each year, and spokeswoman Sharon Weber admitted that not all of them have good intentions. However, she disagreed that crime was any more of a problem for Wal-Mart than other large retail stores.

Not only does the company care about preventing theft, Weber said, its low prices depend upon it and violators are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

"It takes money out of our customers' pockets," said Weber, who works out of the company's worldwide headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.

In addition to the usual preventative steps, such as cameras and disguised security personnel, Weber says individual stores work closely with local police departments, often buying them equipment they don't have and even allowing them to establish substations at the stores.

Even sales clerks are encouraged to thwart would-be thieves through an annual bonus program that is tied to store performance. The more merchandise that is stolen, the lower an employee's bonus will be.

Before the Richland Wal-Mart was built, the developer, not Wal-Mart, agreed to give police $50,000 over five years, but Cerami said the money didn't go very far.

"Quite frankly, that's a drop in the bucket," he said.

In 2000, the Richland Police Department had one chief and five officers. Since then it has added four officers, but not simply because of Wal-Mart. Supervisors say it's as much the result of the township's population growth as its retail business growth.

"Crime is certainly not limited or exclusive to Wal-Mart," said Steven Tamburri.

However, Wal-Mart eats up about half a year's salary for one officer, said Supervisor Richard Orloff.

The Wal-Mart is directly behind Orloff's home, and he wishes it wasn't there because where he used to see trees and hear birds chirping, he now sees the store and frequently hears tires squealing.

But Orloff says the downside is more than offset by an increase in the school district tax base, more full- and part-time jobs for residents and students.

"I would say, overall, it's definitely a benefit to the township," he said.

Wal-Mart Day in court
Philadelphia Inquirer – 7/04/04

By Bob Fernandez
Inquirer Staff Writer

EAST LAMPETER, Pa. - In a Colonial-style home converted into a courthouse, Samuel Ayala makes a confession: He took a steering-wheel lock and paper shredder from the shelves of a local Wal-Mart, produced a receipt from a prior purchase, and tried to collect $40.21. The store caught him on surveillance camera and prosecuted him for theft.

"I did it," the 40-year-old painter said as he sat in the waiting room after his first appearance before a judge. "I might as well 'fess up to my judges."

Attention, Wal-Mart shoplifters: Wal-Mart court is now in session.

Once or twice a month in this town of 13,600 in Lancaster County, District Justice Ronald Savage holds a day of preliminary hearings for accused Wal-Mart shoplifters and others who have been arrested and face prosecution. Like others charged with a crime, alleged shoplifters in Pennsylvania go before a district justice, who sets bail and determines whether there is sufficient evidence for the case to be held over for trial.

But with Wal-Mart cases making up about one-quarter of all his non-traffic preliminary hearings - and accounting for 80 percent of his shoplifting cases - Savage has found himself at times overwhelmed with shoplifters and others arrested at the giant retailer's Supercenter about five miles from his courtroom.

Bundling the Wal-Mart retail-theft cases together for hearings makes for a smoother day, saves his staff time, and avoids some police overtime, Savage said.

"We're changing the legal system because of one superstore," said Savage, who said he knew of no other judge in the state to give Wal-Mart its own designated day in court.

Wal-Mart, which has 130 million Americans going through its stores each week, plants a huge economic footprint when it opens a store. The impact is well-chronicled: new traffic patterns, job losses at local mom-and-pop stores, and, of course, new jobs at the new store.

Less known is that a new Wal-Mart can also bring its own crime wave. A Supercenter in Chester County has generated so many arrests that West Sadsbury officials are considering a special taxing district for the shopping center anchored by Wal-Mart. The additional tax money would pay for more police officers.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sharon Weber said that catching shoplifters was part of the company's strategy to cut costs and keep prices low for consumers. She also said the company would "prosecute to the fullest extent of the law" when it catches someone stealing at their stores.

"We have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to shoplifting, and that is one of the things we do to keep prices down," she said. Other retailers might offset the cost of shoplifting with higher prices, Weber said, "but we don't do that."

She said she could not tell whether the shoplifting at the East Lampeter Supercenter was higher than the average store. "I don't have anything to compare it to. We've never broken that out," she said.

The Wal-Mart Supercenter in Savage's judicial district - a part of Lancaster County that promotes itself to busloads of shoppers as an outlet-store destination - opened in 1997. It quickly generated a surge in shoplifting arrests that has clogged the court, helped fill the local jails, and strained the local police.

In 2002, the Wal-Mart Supercenter was responsible for 210 of 270 retail-theft arrests in Savage's court. Overall, Wal-Mart cases made up 26 percent of Savage's non-traffic summary complaint hearings in 2002, or 225 cases out of a total of 840. Savage said the volume of arrests at Wal-Mart remained high through 2003, although he had not done an exact count.

Local officials cannot fully explain Wal-Mart's apparent popularity with shoplifters. Within a few miles, there are a Kmart, Burlington Coat Factory and two outlet-store shopping plazas, the Tanger Outlet Center with 60 stores and the Rockvale Square Outlets with 120 stores. None comes close to Wal-Mart in crime, local officials said.

Some say that could be because of Wal-Mart's 24-hour operation or because many of its customers are likely to be financially squeezed and tempted to walk out of the store without paying for items. Wal-Mart also has a security department staffed in shifts, with surveillance cameras that assist in catching shoplifters.

Wal-Mart is "trying very hard to control the problem, but it is an epidemic," said East Lampeter Police Chief Dale Jerchau. "For some reason, people around here think you can go in there and steal. Each year, they catch more, and each year, we arrest more, and the problem continues."

Nationwide, crime at Wal-Mart has not emerged as a big issue, experts say. But Ken Jacobs, labor-policy specialist at the University of California-Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education in California, said many town officials did not realize the cost of retail stores when they approved them for construction or when they sought to recruit them as economic development projects.

Jacobs said that, many times, the local tax money generated by big retail stores was reinvested in roads, to handle the store's increased traffic, or in law enforcement. "There has been a good body of research developed that shows the benefits are a lot less than what people thought."

Wal-Mart rejects such criticism, saying its stores are economic engines for communities. The company said that in the last 10 years, it had collected more than $52 billion in sales taxes, half generally staying in local communities for schools, police and fire departments, libraries, and other services. It also paid $4 billion in local property taxes.

In Savage's courtroom one recent Wal-Mart Day, proceedings started about 9:20 a.m., with police officers and three Wal-Mart security employees already settled into an easy camaraderie, chatting about local news and how many cases they had. Wal-Mart security employee Sonya Hee, who was pregnant, passed around the images from her ultrasound.

Assistant District Attorney Alina L. Andreoli handled the preliminary hearings for the prosecution. Public defender Patricia Spotts assisted Wal-Mart shoplifting defendants who did not have attorneys.

Crimes ranged from the petty to the sophisticated. One defendant had pinched three candy bars and two razor blades worth $7.27 from the Supercenter. Then there was the case of three Philadelphia-area women who allegedly tried to rob the store of $10,024 in the form of 274 DVDs, two portable DVD players, a backpack, clothing and other merchandise - all stuffed into a cardboard box that once held a child's car-safety seat.

Misty Davis, 26, of Lancaster, was charged with trying to steal $582.52 worth of items by not scanning them in the self-checkout aisle. She stood before Senior Judge Suzanne Welsh, who was filling in for Savage, saying she wanted to plead guilty.

Davis said she made too much money for a public defender, but not enough money to hire her own attorney. The judge, who refused to accept a guilty plea without Davis' consulting a lawyer, rescheduled her preliminary hearing for another day. "This is my first and last time," Davis said in the parking lot behind the court after the hearing. "I just want to get this behind me."

Ayala, the defendant who admitted to falsely trying to collect $40.21 at the returns counter, said he had been high on crack cocaine - "inhaling demons" - the night he tried to steal from the Supercenter. "It makes you do stupid dumb things," he said of the drugs.

He went to Wal-Mart because he had the receipt, and the store was convenient to his home. "I even asked to see the video of me doing it so I wouldn't do it again," Ayala said. "It didn't look like me. I looked ridiculous."
Officer wounded in store gunfight
Shoplifting suspect is critically injured
Robert Crowe - Houston Chronicle Staff
6/20/04

A police officer working security at a west Houston Wal-Mart on Saturday shot a shoplifting suspect during a gunfight that also left the officer wounded, police said.

The Houston Police Department officer was off-duty but in uniform while working security for the store in the 2700 block of Dunvale at Westheimer.

About 6:30 p.m., he apprehended the suspect and his girlfriend after they wheeled a television and a videocassette recorder into the parking lot without paying, said HPD Capt. Dwayne Ready.

The officer handcuffed the pair and took them to a room that is set aside for suspected shoplifters.

"The male suspect was apparently belligerent," Ready said. "So the officer placed the suspect in handcuffs and called for backup."

At that point, he said, the man somehow brandished a .45-caliber handgun and fired once, striking the officer in the left arm and hand. The officer responded with several gunshots, and the suspect was hit several times.

The 27-year-old officer, who has been with HPD for two years, was listed in fair condition Saturday night at Memorial Hermann Hospital. The suspect was in critical but stable condition at Ben Taub Hospital.

Neither man's name was available.

The female shoplifting suspect was taken into police custody, and Ready said she was cooperating with authorities.

Ready did not know how her companion got to the weapon while handcuffed.

"My understanding is that he was cuffed from behind, but some people are very agile," he said.

Ready did not know whether the officer had searched the suspects for weapons before taking them to the security room near the store's south entrance.

Afterward, people continued to enter the store's north entrance and shop, but the south entrance was cordoned off with police tape. Dozens of people milled about outside the crime scene.

"It's kind of a shock to see this at your neighborhood Wal- Mart," said regular customer Walter Morales. "Danger is everywhere nowadays."

Another shopper recalled the scene as he left the store while the drama was unfolding.

"I'm walking out, after seeing the guy in handcuffs, then I hear gunshots coming from the security room," said the witness, who would give only his first name, Gerrell.

He saw the wounded officer walk out of the room, and later saw paramedics take the shoplifting suspect away on a gurney.

"I'm just glad no one else got hurt in the store," he said.
Customers Trapped in Wal-Mart in Standoff
Customers Trapped in Texas Wal-Mart in Standoff After Two Officers Shot in Parking Lot
The Associated Press
6/18/04

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas — Two police officers were shot Friday while investigating a report of an abandoned van in a Wal-Mart parking lot, setting off a standoff that trapped customers inside for hours.

Both officers were taken to hospitals; their conditions were not immediately available.

The standoff continued hours after the 8:45 a.m. shooting. Detective John Brimmer said SWAT officers were trying to negotiate with someone inside the van. He said he didn't know whether more than one person was inside.

"Let us know that you are willing to communicate by honking your horn," an officer told the suspect through a loud speaker. "We're concerned for your safety. You will not be harmed ... We're here with medical attention if you are hurt."

At least six police cars circled the blue van, which had several bullet holes in the windshield and side, and officers crouched behind them with their guns drawn. Snipers were seen atop a nearby strip mall with their guns pointed toward the van.

Brimmer said the wounded officers had been called to the parking lot to investigate a report of a van with New Mexico tags sitting in the lot all night with the engine running. It was unclear what exactly happened, Brimmer said.

Witnesses told Dallas radio station KRLD that they heard several shots from inside the van.

Shoppers and employees inside the Wal-Mart store were taken to the back of the store for their safety and the doors were locked, Brimmer said. They were released out a back door about noon as the standoff continued in the front parking lot.

Police also closed the access road along Great Southwest Parkway and eastbound lanes of Interstate 20 near the Wal-Mart. The van sits in a parking space next to the road in this suburb between Dallas and Fort Worth.

John Jacobs, the manager of a nearby Payless ShoeSource, said he was about to leave the store to go to the bank when he heard three pops, then another volley of pops.

"When I heard whistling, I knew rounds were coming in our direction. ... I hit the ground and I called the cops," said Jacobs, who was locked alone in the store as the standoff continued outside.

Tenetia Carpenter, a saleswoman at a Dots women's clothing store across the street from the Wal-Mart, was locked in the store's back room with another clerk.

"Our manager called us and told us to get all the customers out," Carpenter said. "We just told them due to the emergency, we have to close our store."
Drug dealers get users to steal goods, police say
Barbara Miller – Palmyra Patriot-News
6/06/03
Drug dealers are now placing "orders" for merchandise that users then steal to get heroin and cocaine, said North Lebanon Twp. police.

Detective Sgt. John Leahy said a Lebanon man was charged in the theft of $4,100 in merchandise from Wal-Mart in the past five days.

The items, which included computers, televisions, stereos and surround-sound systems, were being traded for heroin and other drugs, Leahy said.

Luis Reyes-Gonzales, 31, of the 1000 block of Monument Street, was charged with criminal conspiracy to commit retail theft, receiving stolen property, possession of a controlled substance, possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.

He was arraigned before District Justice Hazel Swisher, and placed in the county prison in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Leahy said a search warrant executed on Reyes-Gonzales' home turned up more than 100 packets of heroin and $4,100 in stolen Wal- Mart merchandise.

Leahy said Wal-Mart officials brought the thefts to the attention of police, resulting in an investigation by North Lebanon and South Lebanon township police departments, Lebanon police and county detectives.

Leahy said drug dealers "place orders for the stuff" with users, paying them with drugs and fencing the stolen merchandise.

"That's one of the things being done in the drug community. They place orders and pay users with a fee of heroin or cocaine," he said.

After the search of Reyes-Gonzales' residence, a second search warrant was issued for an apartment in the 500 block of Lehman Street.

Miguel Rodriguez, 46, of that address, was charged with possession of a small amount of cocaine and drug paraphernalia. He was arraigned before Swisher and placed in the county prison in lieu of $50,000 bail.
Woman is abducted in store lot
Tamara Lush – St. Petersburg Times
12/11/03

A convicted rapist kidnapped a woman in a Wal-Mart parking lot early Wednesday, then drove around the city until the woman persuaded him to stop for food, authorities said.

Martine Breme, 23, told Hillsborough sheriff's deputies she works at the Wal-Mart at 2701 E Fletcher Ave., and was in the parking lot about 12:55 a.m. when a man approached her.

He told her to climb into her car, she said, and threatened to hurt her if she didn't.

The man, later identified by the Sheriff's Office as 33-year-old Erik Breece, told Breme to drive south to Hillsborough Avenue.

Sheriff's Lt. Rod Reder said Breme persuaded Breece to stop at a fast-food restaurant to get food for a friend.

The man let her stop at a sandwich shop and let her go inside. Breme told someone in the store to call 911, then rejoined Breece. Somehow, Reder said, she persuaded him to drive back to the Wal-Mart parking lot.

It was there that deputies caught up with them and arrested Breece. Breme was not hurt.

Records show Breece has been convicted of first-degree sexual abuse, assault and kidnapping in Arkansas, and served six years in prison for those crimes.

Breece was charged with kidnapping, burglary and battery. He is being held in the Hillsborough County Jail without bail.

Deputies said it is unclear why he chose Breme as his victim; the two do not know each other.

"We don't know what his intention was,'' Reder said.

Middleburg man charged in sexual assault of girl, 9
Beth Reese Cravey – The Florida Times-Union
3/17/04
A Middleburg man was arrested Saturday and charged with sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl at the Wal-Mart in Fleming Island, in full view of store surveillance video cameras.

Jason Lee Brackett, 29, of the 300 block of North Mimosa Avenue, was charged with lewd and lascivious molestation and failure to register as a convicted sex offender with Clay County.

A tip from a Middleburg woman, who recognized him from the surveillance video when it aired on local television newscasts, led police to Brackett, said Mary Justino, spokeswoman for the Clay County Sheriff's Office.

He was recently released from a Florida prison after serving a 12- year sentence for sexual battery on two children and, according to his arrest report, was working as a construction laborer. His Middleburg address was on file with the state Department of Corrections, but he had failed to register with local authorities -- in this case, the Clay sheriff -- as required under the terms of his prison release, Justino said.

Store surveillance video cameras recorded the incident about 6:30 p.m. March 8. The child was looking at computer games in the electronics department, along with an older brother, while her mother was in the grocery section of the store.

The video showed a man bump into the child repeatedly and grab her buttocks. A police search was not initiated that night because the victim, who was not injured, did not tell her mother about the incident until later. The mother reported it to the Sheriff's Office the next day.

According to the arrest report, Brackett told police that he groped the girl four times "hoping to make a date," but did not realize she was so young. He had gone to the store with a friend and smoked marijuana on the way there, the report said.

Also, he told police that he moved to Middleburg from Jacksonville in December. He did not register with the Sheriff's Office because "he did not want to be bothered by law enforcement . . . He knew that police 'kept tabs' on sex offenders," the report said.
Suit says children unsafe at Wal-Mart
The State – South Carolina
7/12/04

Few employees get background checks, lawyer says

By RICK BRUNDRETT
Staff Writer

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, doesn’t do enough to protect children from store employees who are sexual predators, a local lawsuit contends.

Columbia lawyer David Massey said criminal background checks aren’t done on most Wal-Mart employees nationwide, even though the company has known about employees assaulting children.

Such checks are not required by law.

However, if a court agrees Wal-Mart has been negligent in protecting customers, particularly children, the company might be forced to change its policy on conducting background checks, Massey said.

“Wal-Mart has a cancer going on inside of it, and it’s the hiring of sexual predators,” Massey said during a recent Richland County court hearing.

He represents the family of a Richland County girl who authorities say was fondled in 2000 by a Wal-Mart employee in the electronics department of the Forest Drive supercenter in Columbia. The girl was 10 years old.

No criminal background check was done on the employee, a convicted sex offender who was listed on the state’s sex offender registry, according to a lawsuit filed in 2001 by the girl’s mother.

Wal-Mart corporate spokesman Gus Whitcomb told The State newspaper the 2000 assault at the Forest Drive store was an “isolated incident, and it was handled immediately and appropriately when brought to our attention.” He declined to discuss specifics of the case.

The company does background checks only on store security employees, night receiving clerks and day receiving managers, Massey said. He said background checks should be used to prevent convicted sex offenders from working in the stores’ electronics and toy departments — where children typically are present.

As for criminal background checks, Whitcomb said Wal-Mart and other retailers aren’t required to do them on “general workers, literally millions of whom uphold the highest standards of professionalism day in and day out.”

He declined to discuss specifics of Wal-Mart’s policy on background checks. However, in a written response as part of the lawsuit, the company said that at the time of the 2000 assault, no such checks were done on workers in the electronics department.

Whitcomb accused Massey of seeking publicity on the case to force Wal-Mart to reach a settlement. Massey said his client initially offered to settle the case in “excess of seven figures,” though he declined to discuss specifics.

Wal-Mart is facing several high-profile legal battles; last month a federal judge said up to 1.6 million current and former female employees could sue the retailer for sex discrimination.

The company has more than 1.2 million workers at about 3,500 Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores nationwide. In South Carolina, the retailer has more than 25,000 employees at 43 supercenters, 17 discount stores, nine Sam’s Club stores and two distribution centers.

THE LAWSUIT

Bobby Devon Randall, then 44, was working in the electronics department of the Forest Drive store when he fondled a 10-year-old girl on Sept. 25, 2000, the lawsuit said. The girl’s mother was shopping in another part of the store at the time.

The State newspaper generally does not identify sexual assault victims or their families.

The incident was caught on the store’s security tape, and Randall was fired after the girl’s mother notified store officials, court papers said. The Hopkins man had worked at the store since 1997.

Massey said store officials offered to give the girl’s mother a $25 gift certificate after she reported the assault, though the company denied it in court papers.

Randall pleaded guilty in 2002 to committing a lewd act on a minor and received a 10-year sentence. He died about six months later after suffering an apparent heart attack and collapsing during a basketball game at the Broad River Correctional Institution, authorities said.

SLED records show Randall had four convictions for indecent exposure, three of which occurred before the 2000 incident at the Forest Drive store.

Columbia lawyer John Grantland, who represents Wal-Mart, said the store didn’t know about Randall’s criminal past; a former assistant manager in an affidavit said Randall indicated on his job application he had no prior felony convictions.

Massey disputes that store officials had no knowledge of Randall’s background, claiming Randall took a three-month leave in 1999 from the Forest Drive store after he was arrested for indecent exposure involving a 9-year-old girl outside the Wal-Mart on Garners Ferry Road.

The mother of the girl assaulted at the Forest Drive store sued Randall and Wal-Mart in 2001 in Fairfield County, where they previously lived, though the case was transferred to Richland County. A trial initially was scheduled for May but was postponed at the mother’s request because her daughter needed therapy and Wal-Mart refused to release certain records, Massey said.

NO STANDARDS

Wal-Mart has several public programs aimed at protecting children. The company posts photographs of missing children on bulletin boards in stores nationwide and developed “Code Adam” procedures to lock and secure a store when there is a lost child inside.

But Lynne Taylor, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse South Carolina, said Wal-Mart would be “foolish not to check the background of anyone who is out on the floor or who is near children.”

“Pedophiles know who does checks and who doesn’t,” she said. “Pedophiles know who to target.”

Still, there are no national or state laws requiring retailers to do criminal background checks on employees.

“They all have different policies based on the products they carry and their business needs,” said Daniel Butler, vice president of retail operations for the National Retail Federation, a trade association in Washington, D.C.

A business that sells fine jewelry, for example, might be more likely to conduct criminal background checks on its employees than a store that sells inexpensive items, he said. National companies also have to contend with myriad state privacy laws on hiring employees.

Tricia Smith, owner of Secure Check Inc., a Columbus, Ohio, company that does criminal background checks for retail, transportation, aviation and health care businesses, said Wal-Mart is the only major retailer she knows of with a hiring policy that states the company does not do background checks on most employees.

“It sends a message up front: ‘Come work for us; we’re never going to check you out,’” said Smith, who has been hired by Massey as an expert witness.

Smith, whose company has more than 400 clients and has conducted about 500,000 background checks since its formation in 1996, said her firm’s prices range from $4 per employee for large retail accounts to $25 per worker.

Taylor said her organization several years ago successfully fought for a law requiring the State Law Enforcement Division to lower its costs for employee background checks to $8 per request.

Background checks easily can weed out convicted murderers and pedophiles who lie on applications for jobs or volunteer positions, said Chuck Jones, a spokesman for ChoicePoint, a screening firm near Atlanta.

“Unfortunately, this is more common than you think,” he said.

He said his firm this year has found more than 50 undisclosed convictions for sexual assaults on children in checks on about 300,000 applicants for volunteer positions nationwide.

ChoicePoint performs more than 6 million background checks a year, with databases containing more than 100 million convictions nationwide, Jones said. He said his company’s clientele includes about half of the nation’s Fortune 1,000 companies, though he couldn’t identify any of them without permission.

Tracy Seabrook, executive director of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners in Durham, N.C., said her year-old organization hasn’t collected data on which major retailers require criminal background checks. But, she said, “There are a lot of companies out there that aren’t doing it.”

The State newspaper was unsuccessful in efforts to contact three major retailers that sell toys or electronics to children — Kmart, Target and Toys R Us — to find out about their policies on employee background checks.

NUMBERS GAME

Massey provided The State with a Wal-Mart document showing that from Sept. 25, 1995, to Sept. 25, 2000, there were 34 reported incidents at S.C. stores involving customers who were physically or sexually assaulted, either by employees, other customers or unknown persons. The spreadsheet listed Massey’s case, though it was unclear whether there were any other cases of employees accused of molesting children.

During a June 24 court hearing in Richland County, Massey said a recent pilot project conducted by Wal-Mart at Charlotte and Florida stores found that 112, or about 6 percent, of 1,900 job applicants had criminal records. He didn’t know how many applicants were sexual offenders.

Massey said he doesn’t know how many Wal-Mart employees nationwide have been accused of sexually assaulting customers because the company would not release detailed internal records.

Massey asked Circuit Court Judge Casey Manning to force Wal-Mart to allow him to compare the State Law Enforcement Division’s sex offender registry with the company’s South Carolina personnel records. There are about 7,100 names on the sex offender registry.

And he wants Wal-Mart to turn over internal records of all physical or sexual assaults of customers by employees at all S.C. stores dating back to 1985. In addition, he requested similar records of sexual assaults nationwide for the same period.

Grantland told Manning that Massey’s requests were either too general or irrelevant to the lawsuit. He disputed Massey’s claim that the company has failed to comply with records requests, noting it has turned over numerous documents to Massey and made at least 13 witnesses available for depositions.

“We’re not sitting on anything,” Grantland said. “We’re not hiding anything.”

Manning said he would rule later.

Before the hearing began, Grantland asked that it be closed to a reporter from The State newspaper, saying sensitive employee information could be discussed. Manning denied the request.