Law enforcement agencies across the County of Los Angeles have partnered to establish a task force to investigate, apprehend and prosecute suspects who have committed retail theft as businesses grapple with an uptick of smash-and-grabs in recent weeks.
In a press conference Thursday morning, Mayor Karen Bass announced the Organized Retail Crimes Task Force that will focus on the organized retail crimes in the county. The task force will include detectives and investigators from the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, California Highway Patrol, Glendale Police Department, Burbank Police Department, Beverly Hills Police Department, Santa Monica Police Department, U.S. Marshals Apprehension Task Force and Federal Bureau of Investigation Task Force.
Prosecutors from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office and the California Attorney General’s office will join the task force as well to ensure suspects are prosecuted to the “fullest extent of the law,” according to Bass.
Bass emphasized that if “someone commits a crime, we’ll catch you.”
The Southland has been subject to an increasing number of retail thefts by large groups of suspects targeting retail locations. The suspects often target specific malls with high-end merchandise, according to a statement from the LAPD.
Suspects grab a large quantity of merchandise often using tools to break glass display cases and cut security cords — or smash-and-grabs. According to a statement from LAPD, each incident has resulted in several hundreds of thousands of dollars loss to retailers.
“Each of these acts takes away from our piece of mind or our sense of our security when we want to go out and do shopping in retail communities,” LAPD Deputy Chief Blake Chow said during the press conference in City Hall. “The Los Angeles Police Department will not tolerate these acts. We will not stand by idly while these acts continue.”