Ruger had wondered what Stan planned to do with all the goods that he had stolen.
It turns out that Stan was not only a good crook he was also good at making money. Stan began to sale the stolen goods to the other truck drivers. The driver opened up his own mobile store in the parking lot of the truck yard. Ruger made a call to the Texas Department of Public Safety (the State Police). A couple of troopers arrived at Ruger’s location and Ruger shared with them the details of the case. Ruger and the troopers observed and filmed Stan as he sold stolen goods. They also filmed him paying a prostitute to join him in his truck. It would have been easy for DPS to make the arrest at that very moment. Instead it was decided that the troopers would meet Ruger in the morning and they would watch as Stan committed more thefts the next morning at the store. The next morning Ruger met the troopers at Whataburger and bought them breakfast. At 8:00 in the morning Stan arrived to make his delivery. The troopers watched as Stan continued his stealing exploits. Enough was enough and the troopers decided it was time to provide Stan a sterling silver set of bracelets (once size fits all). Ruger filmed every moment as Stan was arrested at the Laredo store. When Stan was arrested he snickered to the troopers and told them that all they had him on was simple theft.
Stan did not realize that it is a State Felony and a Federal offense to steal interstate goods. The troopers impounded Stan’s truck as evidence. Stan’s truck was owned by the third-party trucking company and the goods for the four New Mexico stores were still on board. The trailer being impounded created a couple of real issues for the trucking company. First of all, per the contract Lawson’s was able to fine the trucking company several thousands of dollars a day for each day they did not make the delivery window. Secondly, the trucking company was still responsible to get the goods to New Mexico so they had to pay Lawson’s to get new product and deliver the goods to New Mexico. This proved to be a significant loss to the trucking company. Ruger wondered if the trucking company figured out that it might be important to cooperate with an official investigation next time. Ruger had completed the surveillance that had taken him a total of 936 miles (one way) and several days. Ruger was ready to head home. Stan set in jail in Laredo for six months until he was able to be tried for his crimes. DPS charged him with multiple counts of interstate theft going back at least two years. Ruger had been able to provide a detailed document of the exact losses caused by Stan. Ruger also produced the legal documents that demonstrated Stan’s known assets. The assets exceeded Stan’s income so the court found it easy to realize where Stan’s extra money came from. The court took possession of the illegally gained assets and sentenced Stan to 35 years in state prison.
Once again Ruger and Brandon were doing a case after action review. This had become a normal part of their operations as the after action review allowed them to uncover if either one of them had missed anything related to the case. Brandon remember a case from his days as a store loss prevention manager and hand shared it with Ruger. Brandon and Ruger had both worked shoplifter cases. Some shoplifter cases are favorites because of the dollar amount of due to the scope of the case and some because of the personality of the shoplifter. When Brandon was younger (and much dumber) he chased a shoplifter on foot about a mile on foot for a belt and wallet that the guy had stolen. Keep in the mind the company had a no chase policy. The pursuit ended when the guy climbed a ten foot iron fence into a wildlife preserve. The guy and Brandon were both winded and both stopped and looked at each other through the iron bars. Brandon told the guy he should get used to looking through bars because that’s what he was going to be doing in jail. About that time the police department showed up and they keys to open the fence to the preserve. Brandon knew one of the officers from a previous arrest. The officers arrested the guy and proceeded to nickname Brandon “the big game hunter”. There are cases that make for really good object lessons and demonstrate how fast a situation can change.
Brandon received a call from his region manager telling him that the company president would be visiting a number of stores in the area. Brandon’s stores were not on the list but his boss wanted his help for the visits in Costa Mesa. Brandon really did not like this part of the job since he was not a big fan of dog and pony shows but he figured it would be a good chance to see some of his counterparts. Brandon was in the camera room at the South Coast Plaza with Kevin and Nelson. They were discussing where they were going to eat dinner once the president left and was on his way back to the corporate office. As they were talking they saw something real strange. A man in a wheelchair entered the men’s department and grabbed an entire stack of Levi jeans and set them on his lap. Brandon immediately picked up the phone and called the sales associate in the area and asked her to quickly check the fitting rooms to make sure the rooms were empty of product. In order to make a typical shoplifting arrest, there are certain observational elements that must occur. These elements are drilled into the heads of loss prevention professionals from day one on the job. You must observe the suspect enter the department. You must observe the suspect select an item or items from a display rack. You must observe the suspect conceal the item or items. You must observe the suspect exit the store without making a payment. You must maintain continuous observation of the suspect. If you miss any of these elements, you run the risk of making a bad stop and exposing yourself and the company to potential litigation. Fitting room apprehensions are considered “advanced techniques”. It is a common and important tactic in retail loss prevention to verify that a fitting room is empty. The typical fitting room theft apprehension works like this. First you make sure the fitting room is empty prior to the suspect entering. The shoplifter then goes in with various articles of clothing, maybe five items. After several minutes the person exits with two articles of clothing. The fitting room is inspected immediately. If the three missing items are not in the fitting room then they are typically underneath the suspect’s clothes or in a shopping bag or purse. This is not a hard operation as long as you can count.
Back to our guy in the wheelchair. Brandon was not able to count the number of Levi’s he grabbed but it looked like ten pairs of jeans. Brandon has never taken ten items of anything into a fitting room so the large number certainly caught his attention. Additionally, Brandon had noticed that all ten pairs of jeans were the exact same size. Why would anyone need to try on ten pairs of the same size and color of jeans? The behavior by this guy made Brandon realize that this could be a popular theft that is consistent with organized retail crime. This is where a person or person’s grab a large number of a recognized brand that is easy to sell at swap meets or on-line or even to return these items in return for cash. Brandon and the guys began to laugh at who was going to apprehend the wheelchair guy.
The guy exited the fitting room a few minutes later with no merchandise and he was actually sitting a foot higher in the wheelchair. Brandon grabbed a radio and headed outside to wait for the man to exit the store. The sales associate verified that the fitting room was empty. Brandon was wearing uncomfortable shoes and was glad that he would not have to chase this guy since he was in a wheelchair. The suspect exited the store when Brandon approached him and identified himself as a loss prevention manager. Brandon informed the man that he was being detained for stealing Levi jeans and by this time Brandon could see the jeans sticking out from under the man’s seat. The man denied stealing and attempted to roll past Brandon at which point Brandon grabbed the arm of the wheelchair. The suspect reached into his sweatpants and began trying to remove something which Brandon assumed would be a weapon. Brandon grabbed his arm to stop him and the man began screaming. Keep in mind there are customer entering and exiting the store and all they see is a man in a suit (Brandon) wrestling with a man in a wheelchair. The optics on this scene are not good for the company. Brandon realized the optics were not good and knew the president was in the store – these two factors caused Brandon to make an almost fatal error. Brandon hesitated. His hesitation was only for a second but it was enough and Brandon let go of the man’s arm. The man showed his hand and this time the hand was not empty. The man had a 9mm Glock handgun. Brandon yelled “gun” and grabbed the man by the wrist. Brandon attempted to get the gun away from the man when Brandon had another one of those great discoveries. The suspect although in a wheelchair; the man who was disabled from the waist down; the man had great upper body strength. It took every ounce of strength that Brandon had to keep gun pointed down as he was struggling with the man. The rest of the loss prevention team arrived and were ready to help. Nelson slammed his body into the wheelchair
