what if you arrest a shoplifter and cops are really, really slow to come?

[Squid]

I've heard of non-serious injury accidents and assault/mugging reports taking over 1 1/2 hour for first cop to show in SF.

Is "citizen's arrest in custody" a super high priority for LE?

Are you supposed to hold them indefinitely until cops show up?

Lets assume arrestee doesn't have ID and isn't being very cooperative.

[Security Chief]

When I was working LP several years ago, we stopped two for theft on a Sunday afternoon before the store closed. It took PD 3 hours to arrive and we were the last to leave the store. Unfortunately, there was no policy in place that would have allowed us to let them go with a warning and restitution.

[macguard]

I've heard of non-serious injury accidents and assault/mugging reports taking over 1 1/2 hour for first cop to show in SF.

Is "citizen's arrest in custody" a super high priority for LE?

Are you supposed to hold them indefinitely until cops show up?

Lets assume arrestee doesn't have ID and isn't being very cooperative.

You hold them until local PD arrives.

[bbylp]

Once we had to hold 2 individuals for 3 hours, pretty busy night for PD. RLPM said hold them so we did, PD ticketed and released within 5 minutes...

[Jim1348]

I've heard of non-serious injury accidents and assault/mugging reports taking over 1 1/2 hour for first cop to show in SF.

Is "citizen's arrest in custody" a super high priority for LE?

Are you supposed to hold them indefinitely until cops show up?

Lets assume arrestee doesn't have ID and isn't being very cooperative.

Before I retired two years ago, I served for over 10 years as a police officer and then I went to a sheriff's office as a deputy sheriff. I never worked for a huge department, but was familiar with other departments in my county and how they responded. In answer to your first question, no a shoplifter in custody is certainly not a super high priority for law enforcement. Now that having been said, aggravating factors can push it to a higher priority. If I, for example, was in city "W" and they aired a cooperative shoplifter in custody at the local Wal-Mart, I would hear the the PD respond, but I kept doing my thing and did not offer to assist. On the other hand, if the Comm Center airs it as Loss Prevention physically fighting with a shoplifter, the PD responded and I would assist them if I was nearby.

As far as question two goes, you really ought to check with your employers policy to make sure that what you are doing is consistent with company policy. And, hopefully, company policy does not conflict with state statutes.

I think I addressed the third issue already, but I guess it really depends on what you mean by uncooperative. The no ID thing is one thing, but does uncooperative simply mean not answering questions or does it mean wrestling with store employees.

Coming from a police background, I know all too well that many agencies are running short staffed all of the time. As a result, calls stack up and wait until someone clears until the call is assigned. The end result is the callers end up very frustrated many times.

As a side note, I would work off-duty from time to time in a suburb in my county that has both a Target and a Wal-Mart. The PD kept a citation book at each store so that off-duty officers could issue a tag right there. That was okay if the person stopped was charged with a misdemeanor and the identity could be verified. Change that to the guy or gal is charged with a felony level theft, is from another state, and can't (or won't) identify themselves and they just earned an all expense paid ride to jail.

Also, as a side not for what ever it is worth, we had a fair number of Police Reserve Officers around the county that were Loss Prevention Officers at retail stores throughout the county. It was sort of a "win-win" because the Loss Prevention Officers had an insight to what other things the local PD was dealing with and the PD had someone they could contact at the store as sort of a liaison.

Ironically, at least from my perspective, Target and Wal-Mart were near one another, but would NOT share information with one another! So, as a result, a shoplifter could had been picking on metro area Targets, but they wouldn't both to tell Wal-Mart down the street to beware.

Anyway, my question to the LP folks here, do you only share information with stores in your system or do you also share information with competing stores down the street?

[wiredharpoon]

The longest I had to wait was around 40 minutes. It felt like forever though. There's only so many interview questions you can ask

As for holding them, its really upto your policy. Sometimes if they have an ID and it isn't a felony charge we will just take their info down, trespass them from the store, and have them make restitution.

[Curtis Baillie]

The longest I had to wait was around 40 minutes. It felt like forever though. There's only so many interview questions you can ask

As for holding them, its really upto your policy. Sometimes if they have an ID and it isn't a felony charge we will just take their info down, trespass them from the store, and have them make restitution.

"As for holding them, its really up to your policy" - Or up to individual state laws.

[brentjk1]

This very question was brought up on my onboarding. Obviously, it varies by state and company.

I'm going to throw something together here and see what others say. Outside of documenting the actual theft and reason for apprehension, I'd do the following if my RLPM or MAPM allowed.

1. Document admission
2. Document police contacted but did not respond including set times
3. Have offender sign civil recovery form if company has one
4. Photograph offender if company does

I left out trespass as that varies too much, first offenders may not be served.