Last fall, Los Angeles Police Department leaders tracked what seemed to be a troubling rise in robberies. LAPD records obtained by The Los Angeles Times indicate that most of the incidents may have started as shoplifting. Under LAPD metrics, hundreds of thefts in which a suspect uses force or fear in the commission of a crime are counted as robberies even if no weapons were used and no injuries occurred. Typically, a shoplifter with merchandise not paid for makes a beeline for the exit and is blocked by a security guard. A struggle ensues, and the thief knocks the guard over or threatens to do so, triggering a felony charge. Through the first week of October, there were more than 1,200 such incidents across L.A., accounting for 1 in 8 robberies, down slightly compared with the same period in 2023.
Officials wonder whether the data reflect a shift by business owners toward more aggressive loss prevention strategies, leading to more confrontations with security guards. More companies — from mom-and-pop shops to big box retailers such as Target — are making “stopping people at the threshold” a priority, said LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton. Shoplifting incidents that escalate are judged by a legal standard from a 1980s court ruling that “a store employee may be a victim of a robbery even though he does not own the property taken.” Law enforcement has used the standard to charge shoplifters with robbery even if they didn’t have weapons. Although some incidents can be downgraded by prosecutors to misdemeanors or dismissed due to lack of evidence, the LAPD counts each case as a robbery. Loss prevention specialists and security guards are being trained to “observe, identify, and document the situation as best as possible and not to necessarily apprehend,” said Geoff Kohl Sr. of the Security Industry Association. “You’re gonna see [fewer] weapons being carried and more of a reliance on technology,” he said. The classification of some minor thefts as robberies raises questions about LAPD crime figures. Inside the numbers-obsessed department, crime counts dictate staffing decisions and serve as a benchmark for supervisors, who are judged by their successes and failures in lowering serious crimes such as homicides, robberies and burglaries.