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.”