Businesses hope state lawmakers crack down on rise in shoplifters

SEATTLE — Home Depot is doing all it can to stop shoplifting.

But Washington retailers hope state lawmakers give them a break and change state laws to help catch shoplifters before they leave the store.

Home Depot puts electronic monitors known as "spider wraps" on its high theft items that sound an alarm if a thief leaves the store without it being removed.

It surrounds smaller highly sought after items in a metal mesh attached to an electronic monitor that needs to be taken off at the register.

“Sometimes people come in with the tool they got on the internet to remove the security measure,” said Elena Del Valle, Home Depot’s Western Division Organized Retail Crime Manager.

PART I:Are crime bosses paying shoplifters to steal?

The store has mounts cameras in the tool section where the shopper can see themselves in a video monitor.

“So when customers look at the merchandise they can see themselves on the monitor and its recording,” Del Valle said.

But the modern shoplifter seems not to care about deterrents. They simply walk out with shopping carts full of merchandise out the front door in broad daylight.

Like many retailers, Home Depot’s policy is for employees not to intervene.

“Because safety is our number one priority," Del Valle said. “But I believe there's really no punishment anymore for shoplifting, it's cite and release and the criminal knows that.”

The threshold for felony theft, where a shoplifter could spend serious time in jail is $750. But organize retail theft investigators tell KOMO News the threshold to prosecute is in the tens of thousands of dollars.

“There is something of a cost benefit analysis, particularly if this person is not a prolific offender whether or not we prosecute," said Assistant Seattle City Attorney Mindy Longanecker during a recent meeting with South Seattle neighbors.

For years, state retailers have been looking to Olympia for help.

“Right now the law does not allow them to be stopped before leaving the store,” said Democratic State Representative Roger Goodman.

Goodman is co-sponsoring HB1159 that let employees, store security or police to stop a suspected shoplifter ‘in the store’ rather than waiting for them to leave.

“We want to amend the definition of theft to allow for intervention in the store, for what we called concealment, where someone clearly showed the intent to steal the merchandise," Goodman said.

At face value, it sounds like a no brainer but 2020 session marks Goodman’s third try to pass the law.

“The major concern is profiling,” Goodman said.

The fear is employees, store security or police will stop a suspected shoplifter after they passed the cash register base on looks and not their behavior.

"It's a big concern," said the bill’s Republican co-sponsor Dan Griffey. This week Griffey introduced a striking amendment that would create a study group with the intent to create implicit bias training guidelines before the law, if passed, goes into effect.

"We need to make sure we are profiling the people's activities, that is the thievery, not any other thing" Griffey said.

There’s still a question of prosecution.

“If someone is pushing a shopping cart full of stolen merchandise out of the store, I would hope we'd be able to stop them before they get out of the store," Goodman said.

When asked if he hopes thieves would be prosecuted for that, Goodman said, “we would hope they would be prosecuted for that."